A Perfect Mother

I remember when my five-year-old daughter crossed a balance beam in gymnastics on the day Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake. It felt peculiar to be proud of my daughter in a world that was unbalanced in so many ways. The poorest country suffered the greatest loss. I was unbalanced too. Insecure about being a new mother at the age of forty-one with a history of heroin addiction. I was clean for over twenty-five years but having a child put that past of mine under a microscope.

A mother from our school sat next to me. We never spoke beyond greetings at drop off and pick up from our children’s school. Our paths rarely crossed. She was president of the PTA, attended a popular local church, and married a fireman who brought his shiny red firetruck to our daughter’s kindergarten class. He handed out firemen hats to all the kids and let them explore the hoses and gadgets. It was a huge success unlike our show and tell.

My daughter brought her pet Ball Python snake. We rescued him from an abandoned apartment in Nevada and brought him home in a box. He was gentle and easy to hold but her daughter squirmed and refused to hold him. The snake was not as well received as the fire truck and her heroic all American husband. I tried to fit in for my daughter’s sake. I failed her.

I convinced myself that this mother was the better person. She was the perfect mother. She had wealthy friends who hosted backyard pool parties, book clubs, and birthdays at American Girl. They took kindergarten girls to expensive nail salons. Her daughter was happy and bopping around with an inner joy, she was never late to school, participated in class activities, and was the teacher’s favorite. We struggled every morning to get to school on time. My daughter was anxious. I wondered if it was my anxiety that wore off on her.

My daughter’s five-year-old birthday party consisted of a Scooby Doo bounce house on our driveway. I furnished my home with mismatched items I found at the Salvation Army. I bought an inexpensive serving bowl at the Dollar Store with a lip all around the top. The lip broke off, I lost my grip and dropped the homemade fruit salad all over the patio. If that was not bad enough, a child fell off the bounce house and toppled onto the hard cement. Blood and cries and a terrified mother broke the party up early. I was in tears.

I was tired of learning the hard way. I wanted to copy the perfect mom. It was reassuring that her daughter was in the same gymnastic class. If it was good enough for her daughter, it would be the best for my child. This new gym trained kids for the Olympics.

I assumed she grew up in a home with two parents, in a wealthy neighborhood, and she was encouraged to study hard. The worst thing she probably ever did was kiss a boy in sixth grade. I wanted that clean slate, that good start in life. But my beginnings were the opposite of her experience.

I grew up in a neighborhood riddled with drugs and gangs. My parents divorced when I was three. The few consistencies growing up in my home was a thick layer of cigarette smoke hoovering below the ceiling, the arguments over money, and truancy slips from my high school. At sweet sixteen I was hooked on heroin and living on the streets. I was pretty sure the perfect mother was never as bad a person as I was.

I got off heroin decades ago. I believed having a child would wipe out the past and I would start over, but Motherhood humbled me. The past cast a shadow over my new life. Compared to this mother I felt inadequate. I removed the drugs, the drinking, the cigarettes but being a mother required so much more.

To further complicate the situation, my partner was Italian, we were split between two continents and languages, we were not married, no wedding ring, did not attend church.

The news on my phone revealed massive casualties in Haiti. I hoped starting a conversation with the perfect mother about Haiti would close the distance between us. We would find common ground over this disaster. Maybe she would invite me into her tight circle of friends. The gymnastics class was almost over when I finally got the courage to ask her, “did you hear about the earthquake?"

She uncrossed her legs. "It's sad.” She rummaged through her purse and pulled out her phone. “You may not see it this way, but God has a plan for everything. They must have done something very bad to be punished like that."

What would she think of people like me? What would she believe my punishment should be? There was no room for me or for Haiti in her heart. Haiti and I had a lot in common. We were not perfect and we suffered for our mistakes.

How nice it would be to place pain and suffering in the lap of God. To believe we deserved what we got and judgement came from a righteous loving God we could not question. What bliss to not have to look at the truth, the complex historical facts that led up to our circumstances. A part of me would enjoy that peace of mind but it felt like a drug. If I believed the earthquake was a punishment from God, then it gave me an excuse to do nothing to help them. And likewise. If God was responsible for my drug addiction, as some form of punishment, I would have no recourse and agency to make a different choice.

I would never be a perfect mother. I didn’t want to be the perfect mother anymore. I wanted to be a loving mother. I didn’t have to be perfect to be a loving mother.

When the girls entered second grade, she and her husband built a two two-story home. God granted her an ideal life. Three healthy children, bible camp, and Bunko. She must have done all the right things.

A few years later, a big red ‘For Sale’ sign was planted in their front yard, behind a white picket fence and yellow Marigolds. Her husband had an affair. I wondered if she believed that God was punishing her.