Raising Maine

When I was little, my grandmother would nag me with such maxims as “don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.”

A stout woman of Norwegian-English descent with a beak-like nose and a mouth that curled up in a web of wrinkles that could trace their beginnings to the Great Depression, she would ask, “Why do you live only for today? Do you ever think about tomorrow?”

It’s funny to me now when I think about the lithe, free spirit that I used to be. Clean my room? Why bother? It would just get messy again. Keep a waitressing job for more than one summer season? But the tips were so much better over there.

Tomorrow was indistinct, shapeless and promised only more adventures, but nothing cast in stone.

But now that I am a mother, now that I have been a mother for 10 years, I would say that my whole parenting experience could be summed up as “living only for tomorrow and not for today.”

You see, when I became a parent, I voluntarily tied myself in the chains of the future, shackled myself to the stone of someday.

Someday my sons would be adult men. Someday my sons would be lovers, husbands and fathers. Someday my sons would be taxpayers, employees (or employers) and homeowners.

And so the girl who once thought nothing of the consequences of hopping on a plane and starting a new life someplace else began to focus all her energy, all her decision-making, on the men her sons would someday be instead of on the boys they are now.

I would even go so far as to say that TODAY ceased to exist. There was only TOMORROW.

My mind became twisted around such ideas as having to make my boys sleep in separate rooms so that someday they will be independent men. Or having to grow and harvest and cook all my boys’ food so that someday they will have healthy eating habits to pass on to their kids. And I absolutely must always be loving, affectionate, patient and kind so that someday my boys will not have weird mother issues that prevent them from maintaining intimacy with a partner.

My grandmother would be proud.

The problem is, I am a free spirit at heart, and all of this living for tomorrow caught up to me last week. After a night of trying to keep everyone in their own beds, with crying boys who would not be consoled by nightlights, Ugly Dolls and full glasses of water, I gave up.

I gave up, because regardless of the men they might someday be, right now they are boys who need a certain amount of babying. Right now. As in, today. So I lined up their beds like cord wood in one bedroom where either my husband or I sit until they all fall asleep.

Today they are happy. I don’t know what they will be in that distant tomorrow when they are men. And, for the most part, it doesn’t matter.

When I kissed Gus’s feet this morning, I did not think, oh, someday he will not have body image issues because he had a mother who would plant a smooch on his sock-smelly sole.

I think, look, he’s laughing.

Today.