Good
Good daughter. Good student. Good soldier. Good wife. Good Army wife.
There’s so much goodness going on it makes me want to hurl.
Good, good, good, good, good.
It’s exhausting, really, to be “good.”
In kind of a soul draining way.
The irony, of course, is that being good is not at all about being good. It is all about pleasing others, or trying to please others, or, more precisely, trying to please others who can never be pleased.
Why, you may ask, was I always so concerned about being “good”? I don’t know. Perhaps part of it is just the way I am. Perhaps part of it is that whole birth order business and I was the oldest child. Perhaps part of it is because I am a woman and women tend to spend a large portion of their lives trying to please other people. Or maybe it is a combination of all three. Or maybe none. I don’t know.
All I know is that I am done being good. I can’t do it anymore. And I have no desire to do it anymore. I have no desire to please anyone, except for maybe myself. (Of course, there is no pleasing myself, either, so it is best to be done being good period.) Trying so hard to be good was always a pointless endeavor anyway. Usually, when I felt the need to please someone, they always ended up being unpleasable.
I would like to be “good” at what I do. But that is different from being a “good” daughter, student, soldier, wife, Army wife, whatever.
You may have noticed that I did not put “good mother” in my list of goodness. This is not because I don’t want to be a good mother, because I do. Rather, it is because, to me, being a good mother is not at all about pleasing anyone. Lord knows I rarely “please” my children; in fact, I think they are the only human beings who have ever said “I hate you!” to me. But I don’t feel a need to “please” them. I do feel a need to be a good mother to them.
And what do I mean by a “good mother”? Surely, no one would ever want to be a “bad mother.” I think I mean that I want my children to feel loved and secure; I want to be there for them. At the same time, I feel it is my job to help them grow into responsible, contributing citizens. Young men who know the difference between right and wrong, who feel compassion for others, who can see beyond themselves. I want them to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. I want them to pursue their passions and talents and interests. I want them to live their lives to the fullest. I don’t ever want them to feel the need to be “good.”
I always wanted to have children. Besides writing, it is the one thing I always knew I wanted to do. In ninth grade English, we had to write our autobiographies. Perhaps an odd thing for fourteen of fifteen year olds to take on, but I imagine it had something to do with our having just read David Copperfield. “I am born…,” etc. We had three different assignments. The first was to write about our past, the second was to write about important people in our lives, and the third was to write about our futures. I remember my future essay was a narrative poem of sorts. It had something to do with sitting on a sun-warmed rock and wanting to write and wanting to have children. Oy vey! It was heartfelt, at any rate. My point is that even at fifteen I knew that I wanted to have children. I wanted to be a mother.
I love being a mother. My children mean more than life itself to me. At the same time, being a mother is definitely the most difficult thing I have ever done. Being in the Army was a piece of cake, compared to being a mother. Being a mother is challenging, rewarding, hair-raising, hair-graying, exhausting, demanding, funny, sad, scary, and fun. I would not trade it for anything in the world.
I have no idea if I am a good mother or not. All I know is that I do the best that I can. And I love my children more than I have ever loved any other human beings period. I am also a very human mother. I lose my patience, I lose my temper, I yell. I get frustrated, angry, and sad. I make mistakes. Sometimes I think I do things right.
It’s hard to be a mother, regardless of what age your kids are. Some ages are more physically demanding than others. Like that whole baby, toddler, diaper stage. Others are more emotionally and spiritually demanding. Like the teen years. Which fill a mother’s soul with angst and worry.
My life at West Point was very much driven by my desire to be “good.” To please my father, my squad leader, my platoon leader, my company commander, my tactical officer, my professors, any authority figure really. Ironically, I ended up being “good” in the real sense of the word as a student, as a cadet, as a leader. But they were only by-products of my desire to be “good.” And they came at a huge price.
Maybe I can take something from what I have learned about the futility of being “good” and help my children learn not to devote their lives to being “good.” But rather to being good persons who do good things. Then maybe I will have been a good mother.
There’s so much goodness going on it makes me want to hurl.
Good, good, good, good, good.
It’s exhausting, really, to be “good.”
In kind of a soul draining way.
The irony, of course, is that being good is not at all about being good. It is all about pleasing others, or trying to please others, or, more precisely, trying to please others who can never be pleased.
Why, you may ask, was I always so concerned about being “good”? I don’t know. Perhaps part of it is just the way I am. Perhaps part of it is that whole birth order business and I was the oldest child. Perhaps part of it is because I am a woman and women tend to spend a large portion of their lives trying to please other people. Or maybe it is a combination of all three. Or maybe none. I don’t know.
All I know is that I am done being good. I can’t do it anymore. And I have no desire to do it anymore. I have no desire to please anyone, except for maybe myself. (Of course, there is no pleasing myself, either, so it is best to be done being good period.) Trying so hard to be good was always a pointless endeavor anyway. Usually, when I felt the need to please someone, they always ended up being unpleasable.
I would like to be “good” at what I do. But that is different from being a “good” daughter, student, soldier, wife, Army wife, whatever.
You may have noticed that I did not put “good mother” in my list of goodness. This is not because I don’t want to be a good mother, because I do. Rather, it is because, to me, being a good mother is not at all about pleasing anyone. Lord knows I rarely “please” my children; in fact, I think they are the only human beings who have ever said “I hate you!” to me. But I don’t feel a need to “please” them. I do feel a need to be a good mother to them.
And what do I mean by a “good mother”? Surely, no one would ever want to be a “bad mother.” I think I mean that I want my children to feel loved and secure; I want to be there for them. At the same time, I feel it is my job to help them grow into responsible, contributing citizens. Young men who know the difference between right and wrong, who feel compassion for others, who can see beyond themselves. I want them to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. I want them to pursue their passions and talents and interests. I want them to live their lives to the fullest. I don’t ever want them to feel the need to be “good.”
I always wanted to have children. Besides writing, it is the one thing I always knew I wanted to do. In ninth grade English, we had to write our autobiographies. Perhaps an odd thing for fourteen of fifteen year olds to take on, but I imagine it had something to do with our having just read David Copperfield. “I am born…,” etc. We had three different assignments. The first was to write about our past, the second was to write about important people in our lives, and the third was to write about our futures. I remember my future essay was a narrative poem of sorts. It had something to do with sitting on a sun-warmed rock and wanting to write and wanting to have children. Oy vey! It was heartfelt, at any rate. My point is that even at fifteen I knew that I wanted to have children. I wanted to be a mother.
I love being a mother. My children mean more than life itself to me. At the same time, being a mother is definitely the most difficult thing I have ever done. Being in the Army was a piece of cake, compared to being a mother. Being a mother is challenging, rewarding, hair-raising, hair-graying, exhausting, demanding, funny, sad, scary, and fun. I would not trade it for anything in the world.
I have no idea if I am a good mother or not. All I know is that I do the best that I can. And I love my children more than I have ever loved any other human beings period. I am also a very human mother. I lose my patience, I lose my temper, I yell. I get frustrated, angry, and sad. I make mistakes. Sometimes I think I do things right.
It’s hard to be a mother, regardless of what age your kids are. Some ages are more physically demanding than others. Like that whole baby, toddler, diaper stage. Others are more emotionally and spiritually demanding. Like the teen years. Which fill a mother’s soul with angst and worry.
My life at West Point was very much driven by my desire to be “good.” To please my father, my squad leader, my platoon leader, my company commander, my tactical officer, my professors, any authority figure really. Ironically, I ended up being “good” in the real sense of the word as a student, as a cadet, as a leader. But they were only by-products of my desire to be “good.” And they came at a huge price.
Maybe I can take something from what I have learned about the futility of being “good” and help my children learn not to devote their lives to being “good.” But rather to being good persons who do good things. Then maybe I will have been a good mother.
posted by delta at 4:05 PM
2 Comments:
wow. you have blown me away by articulating what has been floating around in my brain amorphously for ever - since i have had kids. thank you.
Hm. I think you're articulating a self-actualization thought that is easier to feel than it is to put into words. It's confusing, because we can achieve good things for ourselves by trying to please someone or live up to an external standard. That's the norma nad basically how we're raised. At some point, though, we outgrow the structure that has guided us until that point of our lives and dissatisfaction grows thereafter.
Here's something similar I wrote about my Army experience:
The Army was a good environment to test my abilities and learn how I actually relate to real people in the real world. However, the Army is a structured environment with structured roles that are oriented according to their relations to the collective whole. As someone seeking to find himself and not knowing where to begin, the Army provided a rich 3-dimensional test environment I could not have duplicated with my own devices. The value of the experience was great. However, as I matured as a soldier, I eventually rebelled against the Army as a vehicle of personal growth because it wasn't mine. Everything I became - was becoming - as a soldier was part-me, but in greater degree, it belonged to the Army. It wasn't of me, if that makes sense. The selfless service that is soldiering is a noble and necessary thing, but little of it is for the sake of self (hence, the "selfless" aspect).
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