An Aubade to Parenting.

I have been waking up early, before the sun rises, for the past few weeks.  During these quiet hours, feeling the baby move, my thoughts inevitably turn to parenting.  I’ve written a lot about the gear and apparatus associated with having a baby, and some about the discomforts and surprises and excitements of pregnancy–but nothing at all about the substance of bringing a life into our home and nurturing it in the way I aspire to.  These still mornings are space to think about–and occasionally fret about–these intentions.  I’m hopeful in this space, in the way that I always am in the morning.  While I may kick around anxiously, sleeplessly at night, the mornings are streaked with optimism.

What I want, though, for myself, as a parent, is a tall order.

I would like to have the patience and deep empathy and solicitude of my saintly mother, who will listen to all five of her children, even when most of them are well into their late 20s and 30s, talk about their lives in all of their (often banal) detail–from earaches to heartaches and everything in between–with rapt attention and kindness and deep and abiding interest and concern.  Is there anyone in the world who cares about the indigestion I suffered last night?  My mother does.  She is always there, offering advice and the occasional, much-needed wake-up call (I recall many frantic, tear-filled phone calls about unimportant things like boys and minor ailments and “what will I dooo with my careeeeerr?!?!” where she would empathize, but promptly call me back to center with a firm: “Jennifer.” I always know to snap out of it when I hear her say: “But Jennifer” in a certain hushed, arresting tone of voice.)  But, most powerfully, she listens.  She will let you gush about your engagement to your fiance, dab her eyes alongside you, saying all the right things, but mainly just letting you bubble over with excitement.  She will commiserate over bad bosses, absurd fights with siblings, the loss of friends to cancer; she will celebrate with you over new jobs, new homes, new haircuts.  She will let you cry aimlessly about feeling overwhelmed during month 6 of your pregnancy, sputtering nonsense, and let you know it’s all normal and it’s all OK.   She will sit with you through the lightest and darkest moments of your life, holding your hand, listening.  Through these thousands (millions!) of authentic and unrehearsed gestures of love, she has made it dramatically clear that we–the five of us lucky people that call her our mom–are her world.  Standing in front of her, I feel important, and, more importantly, loved just as I am.

As if that weren’t enough.  I would also like to have the deep, stand-up goodness and generosity of my father, who has taught me more in action than in word (though, also in word) the difference between right and wrong–and who continues to do so to this day.  There’s a beautiful quote in the movie As Good as It Gets (one of my favorites; worth a re-watch), where Melvin says: “I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do…and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean and how it’s almost always something that’s all about being straight and good.”  This line should have been written about My Dad.  My Dad is one of those “straight and good” people.  He walks the hard line, unflinchingly.  There is no gray with my Dad — there are no bent rules, no possible misinterpretations of his intentions, no funny business.  And here is as good a space as any to mention that, a veteran himself, he has devoted the last decade of his life to ending (not curbing or reducing — ending) veteran homelessness in his hometown of Washington, DC, a metropolis with a particularly dense concentration of homeless veterans, and that, though he is fiercely private and works hard to ensure his name stays out of the press in these efforts, and has therefore refused to speak at the ribbon cutting later this month, because of him, there is a large complex that has been built on N. Capitol Street in D.C. providing permanent, supportive housing to one of the most vulnerable homeless populations in the country.  When I say this massive accomplishment is because of him, he will brush it off, attribute it to the consortia of funders and planners and politicians and non-profits that have contributed to this extensive project.  But I know that if you were to talk to any of the good folks involved in this undertaking, they would attribute its success to him.  He has quietly, determinedly steered this project through innumerable hurdles and complexities and funding shortfalls for the past many years, with no fanfare and no want for it.  I am so proud to be his daughter, and not only because of the bigness of what he has achieved with this philanthropic work; I see this as one of many examples of the kind of person he is: deeply, soundly good to his core.  Hard-working.  Self-effacing.  Big-hearted but unassuming.  The kind of person who does everything for the right reasons.

So, you see, between these two paradigms of parenthood I have been so fortunate to claim as my own–one all nurture and the other all moral strength, and both 100% heart–I have my work cut out for me.  But these quiet mornings in bed, just me, my thoughts, and this new little heart-beat inside me, I am hopeful.