I sat on the couch and held the newborn, who was trying to fall asleep and burp at the same time. The gentle rocking didn’t help, but the soft humming I did seemed to calm him down, at least for now. Since my left arm had fallen asleep, I switched him to the right arm, which gave him a moment of shock, but he eventually settled nicely into that crook as well.
The toddler came along just as the newborn, still snug in my now very numb right arm, finally burped and promptly fell asleep. As he toddled over to give his brother a soft kiss on the head, his cry of delight at the thought of giving that kiss burst into cries of pure joy, growing louder with every step he took closer to his set goal.
The baby screamed. The toddler was crying because the baby was screaming. I didn’t have any working arms anymore, so I tried to calm them both down with another round of singing “Hush Little Baby” full of made-up verses, because I couldn’t remember the exact words at the time of writing. moment.
I looked down at the once again sleeping newborn and the toddler, who was now sitting quietly next to me, playing with his stuffed puppy, and sighed. I half smiled to myself and gave a funny look atta girl in my head.
And then I realized I had to pee.
But I was trapped by a sleeping baby held with very numb arms and a content toddler glued to my side.
My mind started racing, trying to figure out how long I could keep this scenario going before one of us exploded. It wasn’t funny anymore. I was overwhelmed and started to panic.
As I tried to execute a very strategic plan to extricate myself from the toddler and take the newborn with me (because the baby seat was in the other room, of course) I realized I had been here before.
Captured. Paralyzed by that feeling of ‘never enough of me to get by’. Because we hadn’t already thought of everything – every scenario, every move, every counter-move – nothing had been thought out in advance. I was too stupid and not experienced enough.
For them. For my husband. For me.
At that moment I had a flashback to 29 years ago. Two children under two and a half years old and another on the way, five years into our marriage, overwhelmed, always trying figure it all out, because I was a mother and I should know these things. I expected myself to be prepared for every possible scenario.
The truth is, I didn’t realize it then, and even now, as I’ve entered my grandmotherhood with these two wonderful little ones, I still don’t.
Do I have to?
I have the wisdom and insight I gained from raising our three children and watching them successfully grow into adulthood, while one of them is now in the throes of his own parenthood. But young people are complex miracles who are constantly changing. So if I’m being completely honest, sometimes I still have no idea what to do. When should you do it? How to do that.
When motherhood made me feel like a failure, my inner critic began to assure me that being a grandmother would mean more of the same.
When our son and his wife announced they were expecting, my heart exploded. After struggling with my own motherhood—feelings of inadequacy and chronic illness that left me exhausted most days—this news brought me something I never dreamed I would ever receive.
Another chance to get this right.
I read the books without worrying about laundry. I played with sidewalk chalk without worrying about getting my pants and hands dirty. I sang all the songs even when my eyes glazed over from the boredom of repeating for hours. I would take the slow walks and make this little guy stop and look at and touch every last leaf, flower, stone and crack in the sidewalk if he wanted to.
The dishes would wait. The tantrums would be handled with patience and love, not frustration. The meals would be healthier. Bedtime would be a slow, sweet end to a day filled with joyful moments of delight, wonder, and bursts of energy, spent on a dump truck, fire truck, and anything else my grandson wanted to take outside.
I would help him get to know God the Father. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Scripture and the Saints. We would pray. Together. Up loud. Every day. He would know that I also love God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the saints. Because I would tell him. I would show it to him.
I wouldn’t be too sick to come to his games and I wouldn’t be too tired to stay up late helping him with his school projects. I wouldn’t be too worried about having to do all this right.
I would be a better grandmother than I was a mother. I would do all the things I wanted to do with my own children but didn’t – out of fear, out of exhaustion, because I didn’t know I could do it.
After all, it was a chance for a rematch.
Was not it?
In a word: no.
Grandparenting is not a robbery, nor should it be. Those babies aren’t yours. They belong to your children, to the people you raised and cared for. There’s nothing you can do about what was or wasn’t done when you were raising them all those years ago. These babies? They’re a blank slate, so there’s nothing to fix. There is nothing they need to do because of you.
So if it’s not a reconsideration, what do you get?
In my experience it is something much better.
You have the opportunity to be who you are today: the better, improved, wiser person you have become. And here’s a little secret: your kids want that too. They want the best version of you for their children, because they deserve it, and you deserve it.
You’ll also get a front-row seat to all the ways you’ve been a good parent but never gave yourself credit. For me that is the greatest gift yet.
It’s a gentle revelation, these things I’m seeing now. I notice where my son is not me, in all the right ways – where he is patient and loving while I wasn’t. He has developed a wonderful sense of humor about his parenting, laughs at his mistakes and mishaps and really enjoys his sons; I was oversensitive to everything that I did not fully understand and that caused many sharp edges and fragile emotions. He is confident in his fatherhood; I spent most days doubting my abilities to be a good mother.
But I also witness the beautiful ways my son cares for his wife and his children. The things he says, that I used to say and do to make the other person feel known, seen and loved. I see the best of my husband and me in my son as he raises his own children.
I almost missed these insights; that’s how strong the grip of my inner critic has been over the years. But I have the receipts that prove that vote was wrong. There are photos, real and in my child’s memories, that tell a different story than the one my inner critic has created.
This is what I cling to; this is what grandparenting has given me. The opportunity to see where I have succeeded in my motherhood. That’s not a do-over. It’s grace.
