Tonight I stopped by Rob‘s place to drop off a manuscript and some pumpkins left over from the college’s honors picnic. When I walked into the house — I’m a frequent enough visitor that I don’t usually knock when I’m expected — the first person I encountered was his youngest daughter, the middle child. The first thing she said to me today was not “hi.” It was, “I’m sad.” This was a pretty big shift from her usual exuberant greeting, which is often accompanied by either a hug or her jumping on me. Sometimes both.
“I’m sad,” the kid said.
“I heard,” I said. (That’s my usual response to news dispensed by Mrs. Rob or the Rob Children…because 90% of the time, I’ve heard.)
“I never get to see my mom anymore except before school.”
“I know. It sucks, but that’s better than not seeing her at all, isn’t it?”
“I MISS MY MOM!!!! I’M STAYING HOME FROM SCHOOL TOMORROW SO I CAN SEE HER!!!!!”
Something to know about this particular eight-year-old: just before Mrs. Rob started her new job, the kid threw a tantrum when she had to stay home from school on a day that she was sick enough to warrant a doctor visit. This is a kid who loves-loves-loves school. Staying home from school evidently feels like punishment to her, and is therefore something to be done only in the most drastic of circumstances. Apparently Mom’s new job constitutes drastic circumstances.
I get it. It’s hard to be eight years old and have a mom who works second shift. It’s got to be rough if your mom isn’t there when you come home from school and her shift isn’t over until long after you’ve gone to bed. Kids need their moms. It’s a fact of life.
A lesser-discussed fact of life is that kids need their dads, too.
OK, true, dads aren’t frequently the ones at the front and center of the care-giving. Most kids can handle a day (or week) without Dad more easily than they can handle a day (or, god forbid, a week) without Mom. But that doesn’t mean kids don’t need their dads. They do. As the middle child astutely put it when she was lying in bed in the dark, trying really hard to stay awake, “I love my mom. I was inside of her so I miss her! But I love my dad too…I just wasn’t inside of him. It’s different, but it’s the same.”
Back up half an hour, to that narrow window of time after tooth brushing but before crawling into bed — that last little bit of evening that kids try so hard to stretch out. I was sitting on the bedroom floor with the middle child, who decided that we should pass notes rather than talk. The notes were in the same vein as our earlier conversation — she missed her mom; she didn’t understand why jobs were so important; she’d rather eat her body than groceries if it meant her mom didn’t need a job (?!).
As we were passing this spiral notebook back and forth, Rob was sitting about two feet away, observing. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of notes his daughter and I will be writing at bed time next fall if Daddy kills himself or disappears or chooses some yet-unnamed I’m-done-with-this-existence method.
Yes, I realize the kid is so upset about her mom not being home in part because it’s a new thing; I know that the “I’m sad!!!!!” will become less acute as she adjusts. I also know that a different kind of sad could potentially take over…the kind of clinging, empty sad that you stop noticing after a while because it’s always there, waiting just beneath the surface.
And if this is the kind of sad that’s possible when Mommy works too much, I can’t begin to imagine what kind of sad it would be if Daddy never came home. I can, however, imagine what kind of erroneous guilt and self-blame would fester in the middle child’s brain, because I’ve had those difficult conversations with this kid under far less dire circumstances. More than once. If Daddy never came home? That’s the kind of thing that could break a kid…fuck her up forever and ever.
I love my mom. I was inside of her. But I love my dad too…I just wasn’t inside of him. It’s different, but it’s the same.
An Inconsequential Voice 