Still Misfitting

Parenting can often be a wretched, vexing, thankless job.

From the moment of conception until the day we are laid out in final impiety – surrounded by vapid, curdled chrysanthemums and hideous white hydrangeas, in the only unflattering navy blue outfit in our closet, our lifeless lips smeared with clashing flamingo pink (a color we swore to never be caught dead in), to the strains of mangled Andrew Lloyd Webber on an out of tune organ – we subject ourselves to endless humiliation, deprivation, exploitation, financial sacrifices, and drudgery.

During pregnancy we watch with horror our lovely, smooth, firm bodies balloon to freakish proportions, leaving an atlas of stretch marks from Madagascar to Terra del Fuego. We suffer nausea, heartburn, constipation, indescribable labor pains, staggering losses of modesty and blood, while complete strangers probe, sterilize, slice and suture our most sacred anatomy. The cherubic bundles of joy quickly transform into insatiable, selfish demons demanding every ounce of our energy and resources, outgrowing unworn clothing and unused toys faster than we can replace our tattered cotton underwear. Our intermittent sleep or languid lovemaking is interrupted by little bodies crawling into bed with us, melancholic moans of fever, fears of monsters under the bed, vomiting, ear infections, rashes, or other mysterious maladies. We spend the next eighteen years in a constant state of vigilance and scullery, slogging through diapers and dishes and muddy shoes, tripping over skateboards and trombone cases; cringing through “new math” and piano lessons and teacher conferences; white knuckling through drivers’ ed and first dates.

If we are crazy enough to ante up beyond their eighteenth birthday, we enlist into the uniquely suffering platoon of those who forfeit privacy, serenity, security, relaxation and retirement until our ungrateful, ever molting flock finally fly from the coop. Unfortunately, some parents by then have completely lost their sense of individuality and personality, and actually miss the prodigal brats even as they are writing a check to the utility company to keep their little beasties’ lights on.

I have only realized recently why intelligent, civilized, sophisticated people subject themselves to the indignities of parenthood: it’s because of the golden, exalted, beatific prospect of grandparenthood! My finicky son, who rejects an array of tasty offerings from his mother, considers his grandmother’s saltines a gourmet treat. He bends down at each flower in her garden, sniffing with wonder and appreciation, when just days before handed his mother some hastily plucked dandelions as a gift. The presents his mother gave him lay abandoned in the corner toy box, while he takes the Spiderman his grandmother gave him to bed at night. The moment he recognizes her street, he struggles to be unhitched from his seat, so he can leap from the car and run to the door in anticipation of Grandma’s greeting hug. Grandma can do no wrong. She makes the best cookies, the best soup, and has the best toys, even though they are thirty years old and he would sooner step on them than play with them in any other venue.

Yes, it is a rude, cruel job, this parenting gig. But at least I know what I can look forward to now that I’m a grandmother!