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A friend of mine sent me a link to an ABC feature piece. It starts with this 40 year old riddle: A father and son are in a horrible car accident. The father dies at the scene. The son is transported via ambulance to the closest hospital. In the emergency room, the head surgeon says, “I cannot operate on this boy; he is my son.” Who is the head surgeon?
This is easy, right?
Except, for some people, it isn’t.
The thought behind the ABC piece was to survey different generations; ostensibly to demonstrate that kids raised in the 21st century view the world more broadly than kids raised in the 70s. And largely, I think this is true. We’ve come a long way, baby.
I couldn’t wait to pose the riddle to my own brood. After dinner, while my husband was clearing the table, I put the question to Small, Medium and Large.
They were stumped.
First, I was shocked. Then I was mad at myself. I had incorrectly assumed they would consider the answer obvious: the head surgeon is the boy’s mother. (I think another correct answer is that the boy has two fathers and, interestingly, Liam did suggest that as a possible answer. It just wasn’t the one I was looking for.)
While they eventually came to the right conclusion (after some large hints from me), I was saddened by the whole thing. Why hadn’t they guessed it was the boy’s mother? And then it hit me: It’s my fault. I haven’t done enough to teach them about gender equality. I quickly traversed my well-worn path of self-doubt. Am I doing more harm than good by staying home with them? Am I just perpetuating a stereotype? It’s not as if I’ve ever been a model for feminism but I never talked with them about my career or explained how difficult it was for me to leave my job. How difficult it is for me some days, even now. In all likelihood, they just see me as their mom. The woman who nags them to do their homework and wash behind their ears and pick up after themselves. The woman who makes dinner and folds laundry and carts them to their after school activities. That’s probably how they view most moms.
That has to change.
And that’s my job.
The backpacks are packed and lined up in a row next to the front door, which is open so I can listen for the whine of the school bus’s brakes. The kids are up, washed, dressed and picking at their bagels like birds. They are too excited and anxious to eat. It’s the first day of the school year.
Large leaves first, pushing his glasses against his face as he trudges to the bus stop. He is nervous about riding a school bus full of high schoolers (“They’re animals, Mom. Some of them shave twice a day!). I reassure him. Then I tell him to find a seat in the front of the bus.
Medium goes next, after happily posing for first-day-of-school pictures with her younger brother. She can’t wait to get to her classroom and see her friends.
Brendan and I drive Henry to his pre-school. In no time at all, he is busy in the sandbox playing with another kid, whose name I didn’t catch even though I made him tell me three times.
I drop my husband off at work, nod when he reminds me to call the repair shop that is holding our other vehicle hostage, and loop home. From the couch, the dog acknowledges my return by briefly opening his eyes and twitching his tail a couple of times. He continues to nap as though I hadn’t interrupted.
The silence is deafening.
I take a deep breath. And then another. I do not turn on the radio. I do not turn on the television. I allow the quiet to envelop me and I revel in it.
Last week another mom said to me, “I’m so sad when they all go back to school. I miss them so much during the day.”
I managed to hold my tongue but my eyebrows hit my hairline. “Mmm.” I said.
I love my kids. I do. But I do not spend one minute of the nine hours a week that I get to be alone missing them.
Someday, I am sure that I will re-read these posts and remember my children when they were still children and I will, in fact, miss them.
But that time is in the distant future. Right now, this man’s joy is my own:
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