I know
how she feels.
My parents were alcoholics. My father stopped drinking when I was in the fourth grade, but my mother continued to drink until her death. Strictly speaking, my mother continued to drink herself to her death. I’m not just saying that as some overwrought child of an alcoholic; her death certificate actually lists her cause of death as “alcoholism with alcohol induced liver disease.” My father got sober, but against all reason stayed in the marriage with a raging alcoholic – I can’t even begin in this post to go into
that dynamic – until he died of lung cancer. (Healthy family I have, no? Is there any way I’ve avoiding bequeathing these things to my wee Small Boy? The things we’ve handed down, indeed.)
Kids learn early when something is not right even if they can’t name it. My parents were alcoholics, and although they never pulled me aside and told me that this is a Deep Dark Secret we don’t share with the neighbors, I knew perfectly well that it was a Deep Dark Secret and I had best keep it. I almost never brought friends home from school, to the extent that I had school friends. I do remember in the eighth grade inviting two friends to come over after school one afternoon; I spent the whole day before trying to make my room look right. Did it look normal? Did it look like a cool kid’s room? Were satin pillows still in? I even changed the station on my clock radio – even back then I was a geeky public radio head and I used to fall asleep listening to a mystery radio broadcast. I remember sitting on the floor turning the dial and turning the dial until I heard popular music, music a normal kid would listen to (I had to spin the dial because I didn’t even know the call numbers, though I remember them now: B96). I don’t remember what we did when they came over, if we had fun, if we played inside or out, if I passed the test. But I remember vividly to this day freaking out about their impending arrival.
Like Phantom, I feel like an awkward hostess, though I’ve gotten better at it over the years by virtue of watching some of the most generous people I know share their homes and lives: my friend J, in particular, is a spectacular host. Back in DC, his apartment was the center of our social world, a place where there was always a cup of good Cuban coffee to be had, a home away from home for people who couldn’t make it back to childhood homes over Thanksgiving. That’s a role R and I have recently taken up here in Switzerland, hosting the expats’ Thanksgiving (except for last year, when we took Small Boy to meet my brother, and I greatly missed the motley expat crew that gathered at M’s place instead). I don’t do it nearly as well as J, but I learned a lot by watching him. But I lack a certain natural ease. I don't quite know how to do it, sort of like somebody sitting down at a table with the full array of silverware for the first time and doesn't know when to use which fork. I don't quite know how to do a social gathering, let alone
lead one. I didn’t grow up at a full table, with a loud living room and an open door policy. Quite the opposite. I grew up in a house of low ceilings and many closed doors. Window shades stood perpetually at half-mast, curtains were drawn. Today I live in an apartment with floor to ceiling windows and I never draw the blinds; this is, if only symbolically, a great step for me. Our neighbors can
look in my windows; I don’t care. I like the light and the openness. It’s hard to even articulate what this means to a child of secrets.
My parents were alcoholics; I spent my childhood hiding this and hiding from this. I’ve spent the better part of my adult life trying to recover from it, and I’ve spent some part of every moment of motherhood praying to whatever god there might be that my son – my beautiful, friendly, lovely son – doesn’t turn out like me. There are so many things about me I hope never to see in him, and I can trace all of them back to growing up in that family. Introverted, shy to the extreme; afraid of taking chances; afraid of failure – anything, even quitting repeatedly, is better than failing publicly; slow to make friends; awkward in large gatherings; terrified of going to a party where I know not a single soul. All the things I don’t want for Small Boy. All the exact things I don’t want for Small Boy.
How does a stay at home parent with primary responsibility for child care manage to raise her child to be not like her? Is that even possible? Is it enough that I take him to a play group; that he sees me lunching with my Lunch Ladies; that his
Grossmutti is the most outgoing person in the world; that he’s got R for a father, R who moves so confidently through the world? There is one thing, One Thing, I want for Small Boy above all others, I’ve said it before: that he be his true self bravely in the world. How can a mother who is such a coward, who has run from her true self at every turn, raise such a son?
The windows are open, though. At least there’s that.
