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Marion Winik
Gods and Monsters

Everybody knows what a monstrous emotional burden it is to have a mother. Whether the mommy in question is angelic, asphyxiating, absent, or just annoying, it is the task of the child to endure her, escape her, then explain her, to unload her like containerized cargo, perhaps in therapy. In our child-centric culture, we see the relationship from one direction, as if the child were the living thing and the mother something tremendously powerful yet insensate, like the ocean, or the weather.

But this high-pressure system I’m in right now is hardly barometric. As the mother of two teenagers from my first marriage (I was widowed in my mid-thirties) and a toddler from my current one, I am experiencing simultaneously two phases that really should be separated by a decent interval: the wild tumble of falling in love with a baby and the bewildering pain of living with adolescents. As I respond to my daughter’s dependence on me with passion that is no less fearsome for being evolutionarily ordained, I’m also coping with my sons’ break for the fence. Sure, growing up is tough. But check out this bad love affair from my point of view, and you tell me who’s being scarred for life…

Excerpted from I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers
Copyright 2003 by Marion Winik