Romi Lassally - True Mom Confessions

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Table of Contents

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To the three who call me mommy, momma, and moooommmm! Phoebe, Annabel and Owen

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

True Mom Confessionsthe book and the websitewould not have come into being were it not for a fateful phone call with Cooper Munroe of themotherhood.com in which I confessed to a shameful mom moment and was inspired to create a place for other mothers to do the same. It wouldnt have happened without Katie, Tucker and Rebecca who arent on the rollercoaster with me anymore, but who were great partners in the beginning. It wouldnt have happened without those who are still hanging onLauren and Jill and especially Maegan, who despite her fear of poop and vomit, remains steadfast in the trenches with us every day. And a special thank-you to Ralphwho like a motherhas invested so much time and energy without much visible reward.

Rachel Fershleiser deserves a big shout out for her expert editorial help and uncanny ability to sift through hundreds of thousands of tiny entries, and create a semblance of order. When I could no longer see the forest (or in this case the confessions) for the trees, she always had clear and keen vision.

I am so grateful to all the writers and bloggers who succumbed to my e-mail nagging and wrote the wonderful Confessays sprinkled throughout the book. Each of them contributed their unique and intimate experiences as motherssome sharing details never before revealed, certainly not in their day jobs.

True Mom Confessions would have remained in cyberspace alone were it not for the diligent web surfing of my editor, Denise Silvestro, who thankfully saw the humor and pathos in the online mommy confessional and took a flyer. The writing of the book nicely dovetailed with the pregnancy and birth of her second child, so the way I see itwhile she had one baby, I was fortunate enough to be the surrogate for another.

Thanks to my mom for her endless devotion and encouragement. If there ever was a tireless cheerleader with a constant, You go girl!it is her. Thanks to my gaggle of childrenPhoebe, Annabel and Owenwho didnt complain too much about my shoddy mothering while I neglected them to read about other mothers guilt over neglecting their own kids. And last but certainly not least, thank you to my adoring husband, Tom, who over the past year spent many a night next to a warm laptop instead of a warm body. Honey, I owe you.

FOREWORD
by Gail Saltz, PhD

Being a mother is one of the most difficult jobs in the world. It holds the promise of unmatched joy yet unparalleled pain. Most mothers have an ideal of what they want to be as a parent. This ideal arises from a combination of who their mother was, what they feel about that relationship, what the culture around them defines as good mothering, and their own inner voice about being the right kind of mother. From the many women I have seen and talked with about being a momand the entries in this bookI would say more often than not their ideal is nothing less than perfectionistic.

Most women, consciously or not, do not make room for being a human being. There is no place in their mother-child dyad for being angry, frustrated, bored, sad, conflicted about the burden, or even regretful. But the fact is that all these feelings are normal parts of being a mother. Most women who realize they have negative feelings find themselves guilt-ridden, ashamed and are even self-destructive in order to mete out the punishment they feel they deserve. And so they keep their feelings a secretnot only from others but also from themselves.

What happens with a burning secret? Secrets of wishes to escape, get out from under, be far less than your best, be unfair, harsh or hurtful, betray, have someone else take care of you? Most often they take the form of fantasy. You daydream about running away, having a fight, being on an island, having sex with someone else, doing that crazy thing with no restraints. But conscious fantasy is a healthy expression for wishes and dreams you likely will never act upon. They allow a little relief while not having you actually do the thing that might hurt someone else or make you feel really bad.

However, when these secret feelings are so shameful that you cant even bear to let yourself know they are there, they may come out in the form of an intrusive thought that invades your mind when you least want it to and leaves you shaken and guilty. Many women have thoughts of leaving their child by the roadside and taking off. They will never do such a thing but they are tormented by the unwanted vision. It frightens them because they do not understand that such thoughts are often the expression of an unconscious ambivalence about being a mother, which is really very normal. As long as such thoughts remain unconscious, unexplained and a secret, they will continue to have the power to produce seemingly mysterious thoughts that shame and torture.

This is why sharing a secret can be so relieving, healing, and reparative. And that is why True Mom Confessions is such a valuable platform for women. In order to share a secret with another, you must first reveal it to yourself. Making something conscious and being able to mull it over allows you to analyze yourself and gain both understanding and comfort from others. For some mothers, the simple act of acknowledging their secret thoughts is enough to help them be less judgmental about themselves. For others, revealing these truths to someone else can be even more relieving because sharing a secret creates intimacy and makes one feel less alone. It often serves as a testing ground, giving moms the opportunity to ask, Will they judge me? If they still think I am OK, does that mean I can forgive myself, too?

What I know from my practice and personal experience is that most women are more afraid of being judged by their peers than anyone else. That is why a forum like TrueMom Confessions.com and this book are so important. It takes judgment out of the equation and offers a safe, anonymous place for sharing, acknowledging and weighing our own thoughts. It gives women a place to tell their truths, read the personal stories of others in similar situations and come away realizing that we all have maternal ambivalence at times. It allows women to acknowledge, and even rejoice in the knowledge, that they are not crazy, not alone, not a bad mother. Im hopeful that this book will encourage more mothers to be honest with themselves and with others. Only then will these secrets no longer have the power to hurt us or rob us of the intense pleasure that can be found in mothering.

INTRODUCTION

I was hoping the dog would eat it.

Last March, my six-year-old son, Owen, stumbled out of his bedroom and vomited all over himself and the hallway carpet. He cried for help and I dashed downstairsmaternal sensors on high alert. When I reached him, as if on cue, he proceeded to throw up all over me. Now Im no stranger to middle-of-the-night barfing, but I must admit that even after fifteen years of mothering, I wretch at the sight and smell of it and Ive never, ever mastered cleaning it up. To avoid all of the above, I whisked my little man away from the scene of the crime, sponged him off as best I could and took us both up to my bed. What of the throw up you might ask? I left it there in all its steamy, goopy glory. I was hoping the dog would eat it.

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