Me Too You

"I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced" SV Moms Group Book Club pick for June 2010

At times, my mom was too busy when I was growing up. She didn’t work outside the home…well, she didn’t work as in getting a paycheck. She did volunteer in her community (I’m not talking baking cookies for my 2nd grade class, but serving the homeless at shelters) and obtain three graduate degrees. She read, she wrote, she studied. She went to study Hebrew for the summer when I was 12. She commuted to school. She read, she wrote, she studied. My mom was not the kind of mother who was super involved in the PTA, who had freshly baked cookies waiting for us when we got home from school, who drew cute little notes in our lunch boxes so that we wouldn’t miss her during our school day. She is the kind of mother that was busy with her own life, who has aspirations, who still serves as a role model for balance in my life, in my life now as a mom.

Sometimes I wished that I had a mom who was “JUST a stay at home mom.” The mom who was always there waiting for me and my sister to get home, to think of fun things for us to do together, to engage in elaborate birthday scavenger hunts that were all about ME. Looking back, I maybe I was selfish, like most people kids can be at times. Maybe both being a twin and now having twins still makes me yearn a bit for some one-on-one time, and I’m sure that’s part of my fantasies of this “other mother.” The mother that would have time for just me, who would not be preoccupied by anything else at all.

Of course, it is a fantasy.

And I’m sure my kids will have similar fantasies, about a mother that is entirely focused on them or whatever it is that I am not doing now or won’t fulfill for them some time in the future.

For some kids, though, having an actual second mother, The Other Mother, is a reality that can change their world, and I mean change in a life-saving manner.

Four years ago, after I had Ava, I read a series of books about the Middle East. The Kite Runner was read in the middle of the night while I nursed Ava in her bedroom, in the light blue glider, with her nestled on her pink boppy with white daisies…at times, she had long ago fallen asleep clutching her sleep sack between her tiny hands, while I read on, enraptured. Reading Lolita in Tehran gripped me in the same way. This last weekend, I was not sitting in the glider reading at 12am, 3am and 6am while I fed a baby, but was instead grabbing my 5-10 minutes of reading before shutting out the lights for bed each night, reading I am Nujood, Aged 10 and Divorced, written by Nujood Ali. The second mother figure (who comes in the form of a female lawyer with cool sunglasses no less!) that brings aids and advocacy and tenderness to a 10-year-old girl, Nujood, a child bride seeking a divorce from her abusive husband, was absolutely life-changing for her. I wonder if Nujood had even dreamdt that such a thing was possible. Nujood describes a childhood, that despite its difficulties, WAS a childhood, before she was forced to become a child bride.

I am thankful that my fantasies about another mother were so selfish and not necessary at all. And I’m thankful that Nujood got her other mother.

This post is inspired by the SV Moms Group Book Club. I received a copy of the book from the publisher for review in connection with the book club, but was not obligated to post about the book. To read more posts in the book club, visit the SV Moms Blog Book Club page and follow #svmomsreads on Twitter.

Posted on June 2, 2010 at 4:46 am in Book Club   |  RSS feed