The Joys of Motherhood

Ruth Ryan

Have you ever noticed that when a woman is pregnant with her first child everyone congratulates her, but no one really explains what lies ahead?  After all, parenthood is rather difficult to explain.  The other day when I was reading the Austin American-Statesman, a column titled, What Will Prepare me for Having Kids, by Carolyn Hax, jumped out at me.  Someone wrote in, “Dear Carolyn, I’m thinking about having kids, but I don’t have a lot of experience.  I am an only child.  How can I develop these skills?” Carolyn replied: “There is no prior experience, unless people’s babysitting jobs keep them up all night, pay nothing, and last a lifetime.  You could volunteer to work with children, or you could wait for friends to start having kids.  Ultimately, though, we all go with the tried-and-true:  Hold breath, cover eyes, jump.”  I remember feeling like I jumped in head first and couldn’t swim.  My husband’s suggestion was always, “Get a dog first...see how that goes.”  My sister never had children, and I always wondered if it was because she babysat Reid overnight when he was 6 weeks old.  He did the opposite of everything that I told her he would do, and she didn’t sleep a wink all night.

When I celebrated my first Mother’s Day in 1972, my baby was 6 months old; I thought it was a miracle from God when he merely slept through the night.  Mothering seemed like an insurmountable task, and Reid had boundless energy.  He is still in perpetual motion at 34 years old.  But now it’s my turn to sit back and chuckle—you know, pay back time—because he is the father of three young children.  When I asked him recently about his philosophy of parenthood, I loved his answer.  He said that once you have children, you are on their program, so you might as well embrace life and enjoy every minute.  He said that his son has already spent one third of his 18 years at home...Time does fly when you’re having fun.

However, it is not always fun when flying with kids. I traveled many times with three children and sometimes with a dog or two.  Bad idea. You don’t have enough arms and legs to do everything, and forget about trying to go to the bathroom by yourself.  Not to sound sexist, but if I were a man traveling alone with three small children on an airplane, I would probably get plenty of help from the flight attendants.  However, a woman traveling with three kids might as well have the plague.  Flight attendants are extremely adept at avoiding eye contact with the mother.  I can recall one trip in particular when my children were 6, 2, and 1 years old.  The 2-year-old was barely potty trained, and unbeknownst to me he had crawled out of his seat and gone to the bathroom.  When I heard laughter rippling from the back of the plane, I turned around in time to see him shuffling back to me with his pants and underwear around his ankles.  Everyone except his mother was greatly amused.  I couldn’t even attempt to eat a meal or juggle a tray of drinks for everyone (in the old days before sippy cups).

As a kid, I thought everyone had a mother like mine who was always there for us, cooking and sewing and tending to her brood.  She made our breakfast every morning, packed our lunch kits, and baked us snacks after school.  Besides driving me every week to ballet lessons, my mother sewed all my recital costumes, which were elaborately sequined and feathered outfits.

Many years later when I asked her when in the world she had time to sew, she said that it was usually between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. when we were all asleep and she had some quiet time to herself.

My mother had the patience of Job and would never yell or scream commands.  She would take the time to explain or give us her reasons for not doing something.  That didn’t seem to work with me when my child was getting ready to jump off the roof of the house.  I could scream hysterically very quickly. Everyone always offers a lot of advice for becoming a mother, but I think that mother’s instinct, flexibility, and a good sense of humor are invaluable tools.

One of my other most admired women, Barbara Bush, summed up motherhood this way: “You have to love your children unselfishly.  That’s hard.  But it’s the only way.”

Editor's Note: Ruth Ryan is a contributing writer for The Buzz Magazines and wife of baseball Hall-of-Famer, Nolan Ryan.