the hell, I’ll just watch the game
—but in part a kind of fierceness that has led me to feel ever more confused as to why so many men have for so long been willing to sit on the sidelines. As a parent, the sidelines is a radically free and lonely place to be.
My problem is, I want it both ways. I want the freedom that comes with traditional fatherhood and the closeness and primacy that comes with traditional motherhood. I want to be the center of my baby’s life while I leave her for eight, nine, ten hours at a time to pursue my own central interests. I see the essential impossibility and selfishness in my desire, but even more surprising to me is that underneath my working-woman, let’s-get-it-done feminism exists a real reservoir of traditionalism, even conservatism; what I call Phyllis Schlafly-ness.
For instance, a few weeks ago the baby got sick. Because we have been blessed, so far, with an incredibly robust little girl, any illness we experience as a deviance, a departure. I had been in California on a writing assignment for a few days, one of the many work-related trips I’d taken since her birth. When I got back to Boston, rain was pounding down, the taxi stunk of smoke, and I keyed open the front door of our house to find a fever-faced child lying on the couch with a dozy-looking dad. “She’s got a little cold,” he said to me. A little cold? The child’s nose was plugged from nostril to neocortex; her breath was wheezy and her eyes had the glazed look of predelirium. I put down my suitcase. “Benjamin,” I said, “she looks awful. Have you taken her temperature?”
“We don’t need to take her temperature,” he said. “I can feel her fever with my hand. It’s about one hundred.”
“A hand is not a thermometer,” I said. “I’m going to take her temperature.”
“No you’re not,” he said to me.
“
What
?” I said. “You’re telling me what to do? I’m her
mother
.”
The word hung dead in the air.
Mother
.
“Lauren,” he said, “it upsets her to have that rectal thing in her butt. There’s no need. I gave her Motrin.”
“I’m her mother,” I said again and started to cry.
I was crying in part because my baby was sick, in part because I had jet lag, and in part because, at that moment, as in many others, I wanted just to be her mother and have all the prerogatives that role has traditionally enjoyed: to choose the medicine, to take the temperature, to be
in
charge
, solo. Somewhere in my heart exists a trenchant traditionalism that says a “real mother” does not share the work of parenting; she hogs it; it’s her special domain. And I wanted to dance there, in that domain, a real mother, cheek to fevered cheek, with my own sick girl.
After this incident I decided to change things. I’d had enough of my modern ways. I was going to quit my day job as a psychologist and spend more time with my daughter. I was going to insert myself into her heart. To be honest, I was after her love, but other things too. I was feeling competitive with her father. And I wanted to take a crack at old-fashioned caretaking, see what it felt like to claim the kind of expertise that comes only when you’ve spent hour upon exclusive hour watching the toddler toddle, charting the bowels, mixing the mash,
women’s work
. The fact that I started to yearn for women’s work shows, perhaps, just how far feminism has taken us, for what exhausted mother one hundred years ago could possibly have romanticized the difficult labor of raising a baby?
So I cut down my hours at work. This coincided with a three-week trip my husband, a chemist, was taking, the first time he’d been away from the baby since she’d been born. I couldn’t wait. I felt, secretly, like
good, now we’ll get him out of the way
. He left, and Clara and I were alone. It seems odd: she was over a year old now, and never had we really been alone for an extended period of time. The house was so quiet, the mornings were so
—but in part a kind of fierceness that has led me to feel ever more confused as to why so many men have for so long been willing to sit on the sidelines. As a parent, the sidelines is a radically free and lonely place to be.
My problem is, I want it both ways. I want the freedom that comes with traditional fatherhood and the closeness and primacy that comes with traditional motherhood. I want to be the center of my baby’s life while I leave her for eight, nine, ten hours at a time to pursue my own central interests. I see the essential impossibility and selfishness in my desire, but even more surprising to me is that underneath my working-woman, let’s-get-it-done feminism exists a real reservoir of traditionalism, even conservatism; what I call Phyllis Schlafly-ness.
For instance, a few weeks ago the baby got sick. Because we have been blessed, so far, with an incredibly robust little girl, any illness we experience as a deviance, a departure. I had been in California on a writing assignment for a few days, one of the many work-related trips I’d taken since her birth. When I got back to Boston, rain was pounding down, the taxi stunk of smoke, and I keyed open the front door of our house to find a fever-faced child lying on the couch with a dozy-looking dad. “She’s got a little cold,” he said to me. A little cold? The child’s nose was plugged from nostril to neocortex; her breath was wheezy and her eyes had the glazed look of predelirium. I put down my suitcase. “Benjamin,” I said, “she looks awful. Have you taken her temperature?”
“We don’t need to take her temperature,” he said. “I can feel her fever with my hand. It’s about one hundred.”
“A hand is not a thermometer,” I said. “I’m going to take her temperature.”
“No you’re not,” he said to me.
“
What
?” I said. “You’re telling me what to do? I’m her
mother
.”
The word hung dead in the air.
Mother
.
“Lauren,” he said, “it upsets her to have that rectal thing in her butt. There’s no need. I gave her Motrin.”
“I’m her mother,” I said again and started to cry.
I was crying in part because my baby was sick, in part because I had jet lag, and in part because, at that moment, as in many others, I wanted just to be her mother and have all the prerogatives that role has traditionally enjoyed: to choose the medicine, to take the temperature, to be
in
charge
, solo. Somewhere in my heart exists a trenchant traditionalism that says a “real mother” does not share the work of parenting; she hogs it; it’s her special domain. And I wanted to dance there, in that domain, a real mother, cheek to fevered cheek, with my own sick girl.
After this incident I decided to change things. I’d had enough of my modern ways. I was going to quit my day job as a psychologist and spend more time with my daughter. I was going to insert myself into her heart. To be honest, I was after her love, but other things too. I was feeling competitive with her father. And I wanted to take a crack at old-fashioned caretaking, see what it felt like to claim the kind of expertise that comes only when you’ve spent hour upon exclusive hour watching the toddler toddle, charting the bowels, mixing the mash,
women’s work
. The fact that I started to yearn for women’s work shows, perhaps, just how far feminism has taken us, for what exhausted mother one hundred years ago could possibly have romanticized the difficult labor of raising a baby?
So I cut down my hours at work. This coincided with a three-week trip my husband, a chemist, was taking, the first time he’d been away from the baby since she’d been born. I couldn’t wait. I felt, secretly, like
good, now we’ll get him out of the way
. He left, and Clara and I were alone. It seems odd: she was over a year old now, and never had we really been alone for an extended period of time. The house was so quiet, the mornings were so
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