May 11, 2024
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parashat Kedoshim
Motherhood and Apple Pie
May 11, 2024 — 3 Iyyar 5784
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
It is 4:52 PM. Our flight took off at 4:35 PM. Eder has finished drinking his milk. He’s done reading books. He is not tired. He does not want to sit still. In seventeen minutes, he has already played with and discarded every toy in the diaper bag. Now he’s screeching. Solomon and I are passing him back and forth, trying in vain to appease him. The good news is there are only four hours and twenty-two minutes to go.
The woman seated in front of us turns around. “You know, I think he’s hungry,” she says, “have you tried giving him some milk?” Before I can answer, the woman next to me chimes in, “the problem is you fed him too soon. You should have waited. Poor thing, his ears must be terribly painful. Put the pacifier in his mouth at least.” There’s a tap on my shoulder. A grandmother behind me disagrees. “I think he has gas. Did you try moving his legs—sometimes that helps to ease their tummies.” Not to be left out, the woman across the aisle leans over. “Did you pack any socks for him? He’s cold—look at his bare feet!” I look at my phone. 4:54 PM. There are only four hours and twenty to go. There is nothing quite like flying the friendly skies with an eleven-month-old.
4:57 PM the seat belt sign finally turns off. Solomon stands up and takes Eder to practice walking up and down the aisle. The grandmothers swoon. He’s such a good dad. Look at him, bent over, walking with the baby. Awww, he’s so cute. And so lucky to have a such a good dad. I take out my iPad and begin furiously typing this sermon.
For me, the flight was a stark depiction of something I’ve experienced often since becoming a mother. Before Eder was born, I was never blamed for someone else’s bad mood. Honestly, there have been plenty of times I’ve been in public with people who were grumpy or upset, even times when my congenial husband was not the cheeriest. But at those times, no one would ever suggest that Solomon might be gassy or that I had packed him the wrong clothes. But now, there is this sense if Eder is upset, it must be something that I either did or didn’t do that made him feel that way. I didn’t know this, but there is a right way and a wrong way to mother. The rule of thumb is whatever you’re doing is wrong.
And maybe it’s the public scrutiny that’s getting to me, or maybe this just has to do with the unreasonable expectations of our world, but these last months I have had this pervasive feeling that no matter what I do, it’s never enough. And I’m not alone in this. I was talking with some of our TE Tots parents and was both comforted and deeply disheartened to hear that everyone has their version of this. One mom shared, “I kind of feel like that’s the definition of motherhood. When I’m home, I feel like I should be working. When I’m working, I feel guilty for not being with my kids. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I always feel like I should be doing something else.” Another mom added, “I just feel like I’m always failing. I can never finish anything and everything I do feels subpar.” We all laughed, but the truth is this feeling is anything but funny.
As Jessica Grose shares in her recent book, Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood, “the guilt we feel…is compounding our eternal exhaustion. The fear we have of being found out as less than perfect mothers keeps us from being truly honest. If we could stop layering guilt atop ourselves every single day, what could we accomplish? What might become clear about our own values? What could we have the energy and will to fight for, if we were less concerned about how “bad” we are?”
Ok, great. So now we can feel guilty about feeling guilty. But in all seriousness, how do we grapple with feelings of overwhelm and failure?
Recently, I was talking with a mom whose kids are grown. I asked her a hypothetical question—if you could go back in time and do it again, is there anything you would change about your early years of motherhood? She said absolutely. She said when her kids were little, she felt all this pressure to be the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect employee, and she didn’t want people to judge her. So she would only invite people over when her house was perfectly clean, which didn’t happen very often. Her desire to be seen a particular way, he desire to achieve, isolated her and amplified the judgement that she felt in life. If she could go back in time, she told me, she would let people come into her messy house. She would stop trying so hard to be perfect.
What’s our version of this? How do we start sharing what is true, the messiness of life? How can we invite people into what is rather than trying to create the illusion of what should be?
For this, our tradition has beautiful wisdom hidden within a seemingly simple instruction. According to the Mishna, when a child is born, there is a specific blessing that should be recited— ‘blessed are you God, sovereign of the universe, who is good and does good’ ברוך אתה ה’ אלוקינו מלך העולם הטוב והמיטיב.
It feels like such a modest blessing. It’s not “wow, God, you’re perfect and amazing—thank you so much for creating this perfect little child” and it’s not a prayer of petition, “thank you God for this child and please help me to be good enough to merit being this child’s parent,” the blessing is just “thanks God, you are good, this is good and getting better.”
As partners in creation, this feels like particularly good medicine for all of us. No matter what we’re doing, no matter what the voices are in our head, we can say this to ourselves. You are good. You are good enough. And you’re getting better every day.
When you’re running late you realize you left your laptop on the kitchen counter, you can give yourself this blessing: You are good enough and you’re getting better every day.
When you get to work and realize you’re only wearing one earring, you can give yourself this blessing: You are good enough and you’re getting better every day.
When you get an email following up on a message that you read and totally forgot to respond to—instead of allowing yourself to be flooded with guilt, you can say to yourself: You are good enough and you’re getting better every day.
When you give a presentation that feels like it wasn’t up to your standards you can give yourself this blessing. You are good enough and you’re getting better every day.
When you get home and the house is a mess and your kids are melting down and you snap at them with more frustration than you intended, you can give yourself this blessing: You are good enough and you’re getting better every day.
Which brings me back to the plane. The flight to Colorado was a nightmare. And then, we had the plane ride home to look forward to. Spoiler alert: it was exactly the same. Eder was screaming. Flinging cereal. Kicking. Upset. I was so embarrassed, so hyper-aware of how his upset was disturbing everyone around us. Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder. A grandmother leaned through the seats and said to me over Eder’s cries, “you’re doing a really good job, Mom. It only gets better from here.”