Letter to a Young Son
Dear Rabbit,*
Someday you will read this. And I know you told me the other day that I wasn’t allowed to write about you anymore, but I just couldn’t follow those instructions quite yet. Maybe when you’re twelve or fifteen I’ll have no choice. But honestly, if I stopped writing about you now, what else in the world would I have to write about?
Anyway, by the time you do read this, perhaps your palm will light up at the yank of your pinky finger and my words will appear just underneath your skin…. Or maybe smartphones and iPads (or whatever’s coming next) will have gone the way of the dinosaurs and everyone will have wised up to the fact that these pieces of machinery don’t actually make us any happier.
But I find that unlikely. We all seem hell-bent on rattling toward a more complicated, less healthy world. And my guess is that despite my efforts to keep you away from screens and touch pads, I will be overruled by the time you get into the fourth grade (or even first). Was it all in vain, I’ll wonder? Probably not. I’ll come down on the side that it was good for your brain to have been kept as clean as possible for as long as it was and I’ll pat myself on the back for one thing well done. (Until a new issue of Harper’s arrives in our mailbox with a long piece proving that I got it all wrong and you’re actually now at a disadvantage because your mother kept you back in 1880.)
As I write this today — a warm, sunny May day when I’ve just dropped you off at preschool and I’m sitting in my office with the windows open, nibbling at my lunch even though it’s only 9:34 AM — it occurs to me how little I knew about parenting before you came into my life. If you’d told me five years ago about the incredible biological forces that would sear love into every decision I make, I might not have believed you. If you’d told me I would find a wellspring of patience within my heart, I would have scoffed. And I might not have believed how strangely easy and intuitive parenting can actually be.
Right now, I’m hoping you’re having a good morning at school and are ignoring that kid who wasn’t into sharing the frog puzzle (as I was leaving, I saw you wisely make your way over to an airplane puzzle, where you could play without drama). I hope you don’t get sunburned on the back of your sweet neck and on the top of your chest where you wouldn’t let me put sunblock this morning. And, for both our sakes, I’m hoping you don’t crash from the sugar in that gluten-free brownie I let you have before breakfast. Daddy whipped those up for you last night on the fly so that you’d have something to eat at snack time, since Max and Eli are bringing doughnuts to share for their birthdays.And they were, I agree, hard to resist this morning.
I know it will be hard for you not to have a doughnut. You love doughnuts. We call them ‘dug hut nuts’ in our house because your imaginary friends Bronx and Bob couldn’t pronounce doughnuts. I also know that because you’re tenderhearted you’ll get some joy just from watching the other kids enjoy the ‘dug hut nuts.’ And you’ll tell me about that, too, when I pick you up. My guess is that you might feel a little more emotional and hungry this morning because of the aforementioned brownie, which you ate instead of breakfast. (I somehow fell for your assurances that you’d eat your eggs, which of course you didn’t, especially after you got your hands on a piece of dried out and deflated maple cotton candy as well.) When I suggested this sugar feast was going to make for a real train wreck of a morning, you told me “you don’t get to be my mommy anymore.” I looked at you and said, “Well that would be very sad for me. Who would be your mommy, then?”
“Some other lady,” you said.
“I’d miss you, “ I said, a tad wistfully. And then I could see on your face how much you’d miss me, too. But of course you’re not going to tell me that. This is all a story anyway and if there’s anyone who understands making up stories, it’s your mommy. That’s got to be one good thing about having me for your mommy (as opposed to some other lady who might be an accountant.)
Of course, now that you’re older and sager, I can tell you that the reason I didn’t make a big stink about the brownie and the maple candy and the eggs left mostly untouched was because I knew the birthday thing was happening today, and, let’s face it, you’ve been on some kind of elimination diet for most of your life as we’ve tried to sort through the various food allergies and sensitivities in our family. And you’ve really been such a good sport about it. I know it’s a drag at times. Especially when other kids get to eat things in front of you that I know you must want. And add to that the fact that I want you to eat organic as much as possible, which makes it even harder for you to share at snack time, and you might wonder what I was doing. Or what I told myself all those times I felt crummy about being so careful and particular (or if indeed I ever had felt crummy — I did): I told myself that you’re healthy and strong and smart, and there’s got to be some part of that which is directly related to how careful we are with our food. But there’s little empirical evidence. So I could have it all wrong. But I pray I don’t, just for my own sake.
Sometimes, lately, as you’ve been running around the backyard, the wind blowing your hair as you swoop across the grass with the delicacy of Baryshnikov, I’ve been watching you talk and laugh to yourself and I’m remembering myself at four. I still swear to God that I was my smartest at four and that it all went downhill after that. I remember just starting to read, as you are now. I remember suddenly being able to do simple math, as you are now. And I also remember beginning to write letters and words, as you are now. I remember that feeling of power I had as my brain worked to gather up as much knowledge as possible. I remember feeling that the world was limitless. As I sit in the grass and watch you play — and this is new, really, this independent desire of yours to play alone, without me — I find myself thinking about this feeling I’ve had lately that getting older is a lesson in coming to terms with the idea that horizons do not always expand, as I used to think they did. The world is not limitless. Or it doesn’t feel that way anymore, to me.
But as your mommy I need to make sure — while you’re young and free, playing outside wearing just your underwear and a T-shirt — that everything feels surmountable and that as far as your eye can see, the possibilities are there. And there’s a little sadness for me in understanding this is my job because I know, just inherently, that you will leave me behind on this grassy slope, and I’ll watch you go off into the world while I reconcile myself to what is left. This will have to be okay for you to do. I’ll have to cheer. Even if I think the world you’re going into is a shit sandwich. Because even if I’m left behind, even if I’m not there to make sure you eat your good, green organic lettuce, even if I can’t make sure you have a gluten-free brownie waiting for you when your peers start pulling out the doughnuts, and even if I don’t know what I believe in for myself anymore, the only way I can be your best mommy is if I tell you that your optimism is justified.
At night recently you have wanted to tell me how much you love me. You say you love me “as big as 10,111 houses put together.” You tell me “that’s huge.” You tell me you love me more than I love you. I don’t correct you, because who am I to say? And, also, I know from now having been both a child and a parent that kids don’t get how deeply their parents love them until they become parents themselves. So no matter how you’re reading this — whether on some Apple instrument of the future (which is only now just a scribble of an idea on a Post-It) or on a slab of granite — and no matter where I am at that moment, I want you to know how glad I am to have been able to be your mom. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And that’s not only a story. It’s true.
Love,
Mommy
* Heretofore known by my readers as Master M. But since this letter is for you, I use the nickname Daddy and I call you at home.
