When I quit working to become a full-time mom, I was seriously pregnant with my second child. My first had been in child-care for most of her little life. I had spent every possible moment with her and tried to make it the most quality of quality time. But there was a big portion of each day that she wasn’t with me.
So, when I finally got to stay home with her I wanted to make sure every day was perfect and full of wonderful memories. I planned everything out. Day one of our new odyssey together was going to be spectacular. I remember spending hours making tiny little canapés out of her peanut butter sandwich with miniature cookie cutters, drawing detailed life-like pictures of Barney and Baby-Bop to cut, color, and paste on paper bags for puppets, and a host of other mother-of-the-year activities. My daughter was going to sing my praises for staying home.
Except when the time came to unveil all of this to her little three year-old self . . . she just sort of looked at it with a disinterested eye and said “I don’t feel like peanut butter today,” and “I like Reading Rainbow better than Barney now.” Then skipped off to her room.
Wha? I . . . Wha? After hours and hours spent painstakingly working my fingers to the bone over all of these little crafts and miniature foods and books and projects, SHE DIDN’T CARE?! How could she not care?
I was stunned. Shocked. Offended.
And then I asked myself: Who was I doing it for? She hadn’t asked me to color-coordinate Baby-Bop’s outfit with lunch, or to research the best breads for canapés. Hmmm.
I have a similar reaction now when I go to elephantine efforts to make an exotic meal for the fam and all people do is pick the little spinach-dyed quail-eggs out of it and ask if we have any corn dogs. Or when I take the trouble to do a massively themed birthday party for someone–right down to the homemade glitter-fish on the walls, under-the-sea mermaids on the cake and shell macaroni and cheese with little fish shaped crackers–and attendees ask if they have to eat it. You bet your Jack Sparrow you have to eat it, you little barnacles! I slaved over it!
And now I’m noticing that it happens when I write something and it isn’t ovated enough. Praised enough. Enjoyed enough. Or heck, even read. Didn’t people notice how much effort I put into the adorably alliterated articulations, and the deeply symbolic turns of phrase which flowed before them like the golden turnings of the books of their lives?
I have to ask myself: Who am I doing this for? If it is mostly me, it’s a fair guarantee that few others will want to read it (or use it or participate in it). It will largely be interesting to me, helpful to me, desired by me. Oh, others may find something diverting in it for a mo, but I think the me-ness of it strips it of something essential. That which can only come from a true gift: love and joy, and complete freedom.
Think it’s time to round-file Barney and Baby Bop until someone asks for them. Meantime, I’ll try to make it about you. Like Julian Smith there below. Who is not at all cracked-out about it.
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