The Magazine Years - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

The Magazine Years

I still recollect them - the magazine years -
I wiped dirty bottoms, I wiped away tears
(sometimes tears were theirs and sometimes they were mine -
sometimes in a salty pool all would combine!)
I longed to read novels - escape for a bit,
but kids kept me busy - I couldn't just quit.
No time for a sit down to read and relax -
this is no bid for sympathy, merely the facts.
For toddler and infant desires went on hold
as kisses were doled out and stories were told.
I read about oceans, sea creatures and whales,
morality tales where good always prevails;
I read about rockets and planets and stars
and alien creatures and visits to Mars.
I read Dr. Seuss and I read Robert Munsch.
Our story time, daily, was right after lunch.
I'd read 'til their eyelids grew heavy with sleep
and once they were dozing reward I could reap.
To read just one chapter - too much of a tease!
But in time allotted I knew I could squeeze
perusal of Chatelaine or Woman's Day -
whatever back issue just happened my way.
I read bits and pieces while both were asleep -
it helped me unwind and my sanity keep.
I read lots of books, but I read none for me!
(The self sacrifice didn't come easily.)
And yet books saved us all - as we'd snuggle and read
a day's worth of stresses would somehow recede.
I'd see small wiggling bodies relax and grow still
while eyes scanned the pictures and minds drank their fill.
I'll never regret any books that I missed
in those long ago days when each booboo was kissed.
My patience was thin then; peace always my quest -
but hours spent reading left all of us blessed.
Magazines? Merely candy! Those books were the feast!
Of this fact I never had notion the least.
My children grew up to read books on their own -
now in peaceful bedroom I read all alone.
My hours to read, all I'll ever require
and access to any book I could desire -
but I can admit that as older age nears,
there are times I yearn for those magazine years.

Sharon Flood Kasenberg (March 23, 2014)

When I was a young mother nobody owned hand-held devices. Our telephones (our lifelines to maternal support!) were all firmly attached to the wall. Sometimes we acquired an extra ten or fifteen feet of leeway via a longer jack cord, but without a doubt our ability to keep an eye on the children and talk to friends simultaneously was curtailed. (Somewhere in Sudbury, under more than two decades of paint, lies evidence that my sons didn't take kindly to being left to draw by themselves while I gabbed with a friend.) I might have bought myself a few extra minutes of adult conversation if I'd chosen to turn on the television for them, but I didn't.

In those days there was a lot of debate about how much television kids should watch. I aligned myself firmly with those who refused to resort to using the television as a babysitter. As a mother of sons less than thirteen months apart, I can't say I never turned on the television for fifteen minutes when I needed to make a phone call or get supper on the table, but those short spurts were infrequent. Luckily, because I felt the way I did my sons had little interest in watching TV until they were beyond their toddler years. As preschoolers, if they wanted to watch television they asked for permission. They watched that one show and the set got turned off, usually without much complaining from them.  I distracted them because I didn't want them to develop too much affinity for television watching.

Instead, I wanted them to love books, and taking walks - to see beauty in nature and love learning, which required a lot more effort on my part than plunking them down in front of a screen. More than twenty years later I can say that taking some extra trouble to keep them well entertained was worthwhile.

Let me state for the record that I didn't find the daily tasks involved in mothering incredibly gratifying. I had lived on my own for several years before marrying and was used to doing what I wanted when I wanted. In my single days I loved to read and take long solitary walks - but I knew that would have to change when I had children.

As a teenager I had a lot of exposure to children. I worked with them at church and babysat to earn money. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't a "kid person". (Children, in my opinion, are merely small people - I like or dislike them on an individual basis.)  Luckily I'd had enough positive experiences to know I wanted to have children someday.  I'd also had sufficient child related difficulties to know that kids were a whole lot of work. Perhaps my mixed feelings about children in general kept me from having unrealistic expectations about how glamorous motherhood would be. Likewise my lack of patience kept me from raising horrific brats. I still think that I did the world a favor by having a low threshold for screeching and temper tantrums.

I mothered based on own childhood experiences, trying to give them more of the things I enjoyed and felt I'd wanted more of and trying to avoid making the "mistakes" my parents made. (A wise choice, since I discovered along the way that there are always fresh mistakes one can - and will - make entirely under one's own steam.)

And steam I did. I often felt frustrated by the fact that I had to put their needs before my own. I craved adult company, I yearned to read books all afternoon, to take walks alone, to talk on the phone uninterrupted and do a bit of cross-stitch in daylight from time to time. None of those things happened very often, and I can't say I accepted that fact graciously. On one memorable day when my oldest was a toddler and my youngest still a babe in arms, I decided that I'd work on my latest stitching project while the baby napped and the tot toddled. HA! Naturally that didn't go so well, and in an angry snit I put all my stitching stuff into a large tupperware box, snapped the lid on tight and hurled it down the basement stairs. (The noise woke the baby - of course.) When my husband came home from work he noticed my stitchery box at the bottom of the stairs and helpfully brought it up to me.

I ranted at him about how I could never enjoy pursuing my hobbies with the boys underfoot. I felt like I was being selfish even as the words left my mouth. My husband pragmatically reminded me that my self denial was temporary - in a year or two they'd be less needy and I'd have more time to myself. I knew he was right, but that "year or two" felt like an eternity at the time.

 For the next few years I tried to be stoic as I showed them how to build with blocks and play with each other - and read to them for hours on end. I read (yes, mostly magazines) and stitched when I could - in short bursts while they napped and when they fell asleep at night. I took long walks when my husband worked from home on the odd day or took pity on me and sent me out the door for an hour by myself - which frankly felt like heaven at the time.

It wasn't an easy time in my life. It wasn't always fun and I often felt very shortchanged on immediate gratification. However, the time I invested in my sons in those first few years paid off in the next few. By the time they were three and four they could play together happily for long stretches of time with a lot less input from me. We could go on outings together easily - and we did. It was a common sight in my neighbourhood - me pulling one or both boys in their red wagon. We frequented playgrounds in the Minnow Lake area. We hosted and went on play dates. And of course, every couple of weeks we caught the bus to the Library in the New Sudbury Shopping Center and all got fresh books to read.

There was a brief rough patch when my older son went off to junior kindergarten without his brother. The first few days were teary, and I was not thrilled about having to acknowledge that I'd need to spend more time with the younger son to compensate for the loss of his playmate. However, we soon established a new routine - which included more walks and outings than ever before since traveling with one son was so much easier than with two.

Memory:

A memory, dear to me
I held you on my knee -
silently I watched you sleep,
snuggled close; breathing deep.
You, a sleeping child of three
in tender memory.
Seldom had I seen you so -
teary eyed, full of woe -
so consumed by need of me -
my fretful child of three.
A young mother, could I know
the speed at which you'd grow,
when I held you near to me
a sleeping child of three?

Now, and in memory -
my child, so dear to me.

Sharon Flood Kasenberg (April 2006)

I wish I could tell you that I loved every minute of my sons' young lives, but I didn't. All I can say with complete honesty is that I have never regretted the sacrifices I made - the books I didn't get to read or the gabfests with friends that I seldom got to indulge in.  I don't look back and wish I'd done a million things differently - only that I'd done those same things more gracefully. I wish I had tried harder to find joy in doing the mundane things that took up so many hours of the average day then. I wish I could have really grasped how little time I was sacrificing to my children in the grand scheme of things. I wish I would have immersed myself more in wonder - spent more time saying "Oh wow!" than "Oh no!" or "Woe is me!"

Time goes by so quickly. Their school years pass in a blur, and suddenly they're as tall as you - then taller. Their childhood is nothing more than a series of memories for each of you. I chose to limit the memories I have of them sitting in front of the television or watching movies on the VCR. I chose to give them memories of time with me, time outdoors, and time spent reading together.

I think I chose well.