Iāve had enough conversations with other moms now that I have decoded some obligatory Momspeak.Ā
Most of my interactions have followed this exact pattern: When visiting a new mom (or I guess any woman whoās just had a baby, whether or not itās her first), it is oneās duty to tell her, āYou look amazing,ā and as an acknowledgment of her accomplishment, say, āGood job, Mama.ā The last required piece is a comment on the baby: āHeās/sheās so cute.ā
Each time someone says, āGood job, Mamaā to me, it takes me a minute to realize who people are referring to when they use the word āmama.ā
These titles conferred upon me feel foreign, awkward, like each of them is an ill-fitting shirt Iāve been asked to try on. None is comfortable. It makes think of The Namesakeās main character Gogol Ganguli, who doesnāt want to start kindergarten because, as his Bengali familyās tradition dictates, he will have to go by a new name, his formal name Nikhil: āHe is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesnāt know. Who doesnāt know him.ā[1]
My current life circumstances seem to qualify me for the designation of āmom,ā but Iām going through the motions, half-convinced some authority with a clipboard will knock on the door one day and revoke my status.
It wasnāt until I was 32 that the prospect of being someoneās mother seemed even the vaguest possibility. Five years later, I am finally someoneās mother, and I donāt know who I am. I donāt know who this āmamaā is that people keep mentioning while they look at me. My pre-mother self is still out there, but she feels impossibly remote, astray, as if she now exists in a parallel universe.
Iām so glad we have friends who will unabashedly ask to come over and hold Otis.Ā They also want to give me a break, but Iām pretty sure baby-holding is the priority, and thatās okay.
When our church friend/Malachiās classroom assistant Carol came over to hold Otis today, I made a point of paying attention to how she talked to him. I am embarrassed to admit that I donāt really know how to do this. And the other day, I even forgot the words to āTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.ā The part of my brain storing that kind of information has completely shriveled up from disuse until now.
So I try my best. I narrate some of the things Otis and I do with my own call-and-response, for example, Iāll say, āIs it time to check that diaper? Letās check that diaper,ā or āAre you cold, honey? Yeah, it looks like youāre cold.ā
And Iām guessing my doctor would say Iām doing just fine as long as Iām talking to him, but I run out of things to say. Talking to a newborn is the equivalent of talking to yourself, and Iāve never been one to do that. I even bought a voice recorder, years ago, with the intention of speaking ideas and inspirations aloud when it was too inconvenient to write them down.
But I never used it, not once. I kept packing and unpacking it as I moved from house to house, feeling a wave of guilt each time I saw it. After maybe eight years of this, I finally put it in a box for Goodwill. I felt stupid talking out loud to myself.
This is perhaps related to some deep-seated issues I have around using my voice, that go back to me creeping down to my parentsā bedroom and standing silently by their bed in the middle of the night. When asked what was wrong, I couldnāt bring myself to say I had a bad dream or was scared. I couldnāt say anything. Some kind of shame-based fear told me not to open my mouth.
So of course now, 30 years later, Iām afraid Iāll stunt my babyās intellectual, psychological, and emotional growth because I canāt carry on a one-sided conversation with him. I think heāll end up like those Romanian orphanage babies, with reactive attachment disorder, learning disabilities, and a failure to thrive.
So I eavesdropped on Carol and Otis for a few minutes, and realized that itās as much about presence, enthusiasm, and tone as it is content. She just held him and put her face close to his, saying things like āYou like looking up at those pictures, donāt you?ā in a warm and gentle voice.
Shame tells me Iām doing something wrong if I canāt even remember nursery rhymes. So then I think I should try a different tack, like maybe letting loose a stream-of-consciousness diatribe on something meaningful, say, my thoughts on the state of 21st century free market capitalismā¦or Nabokovās writing styleā¦or, maybe, naturopathic medicine. However, my audience is mute, with the exception of snorting, grunting, and squealing.
Perhaps Iām overthinking it.
[1] Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
