Dis/favor
Mama. Mama. Mama. Mamamamamamamamamama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama.
I struggle to make out the words of the conversation taking place between my partner and our friends, a little further up on the trail, as T pleads–insistently–for not me directly in my ear. It’s cold. It’s my first time carrying her in this new backpack, and every step sends a pain shooting into my hip. But by far the biggest strain is trying to maintain my composure, tend to my heart, while my child continues to voice her disfavor for me as we traipse along the trail. (OK, she’s actually just voicing favor for mama. But it’s hard for me not to feel like it’s an active dislike.)
This pattern has been getting more and more intense over the last two months, triggered, it seems to me, by an ER visit around New Years that made T feel really vulnerable. Initially, it was a hunch. If she woke up in the night and I went to soothe her, she would continue to feel unsettled and struggle to fall back to sleep until mama made a follow-up visit. But since then, things have become much more obvious. When we’re all together, if I pick her up, or take her out of the car seat, she shoots out her arms in the direction of her mama and says “take.” Or if I take her hands to help her walk, she stops cold, her voice trembling, as if she’s on the verge of panic, her eyes darting around for mama. Is my child afraid of me? What could be so terrifying about being left in my care for a minute while mama goes to use the bathroom or grab her coat?
People tend to minimize. “Oh, I remember that. Our child used to alternate back and forth all the time.” “It’ll change.” “Try not to take it personally.” I know that I can’t (or at least shouldn’t) impute malice to my 17 month old. But it really hurts. I spent hours with her today, and not 5 minutes went by where she didn’t ask about or demand not me. The initiation into parenthood hasn’t been easy for me. And all I want is to bond with my child, to feel intimacy with her. But instead, for now at least, our time together often feels like a constant stream of tiny rejections. When I go to pick her up, I notice my body bracing, preparing to be spurned. I know she doesn’t mean to hurt me. But how could this not hurt? In what other relationship would I tolerate even 1/100th of the rejection?
I ping pong, back and forth, between two explanations. 1. Her mama feels safer because she’s her mama and, in our gender pairing, she’s the archetype of comfort. 2. Her mama feels safer because she IS safer. I hate both of these thoughts.
I hate the first one because, like so many things in our family dynamic these days, it feels gendered and essentialist. We started out with what seemed like an exceptional amount of parity for our two bodies and spirits. T struggled with breastfeeding, so every meal during the first several months was all hands on deck. For a time, I fed her much more than her mama did because, when we woke up every 2-3 hours in the middle of the night, mama had to pump to try to keep and increase her supply. I knew papas who said that, by the end of the first few weeks, they were essentially sleeping through the night again because, when the child stirred, mama would just “roll over and give baby the boob.” I felt a little jealous. But more than that, I felt proud that, despite my insomnia, I was in the trenches with mama. That was the kind of man I wanted to be. Not one of those removed or absentee papas. But now, I fear that T looks at me that way. That even after all of that, she doesn’t feel attached to me. That mama is still supreme. And that scrambles all of my views and values about gender as a construct. Even more, the accumulation of rejection actually makes me crave the distance that I prided myself on avoiding. It’s like she’s pushing me to the sidelines. To become the kind of man that I scorned.
I hate the second one because of the shame that it summons. What if I am actually unsafe to her for some reason? What if I brought this upon myself? What if I deserve it? Even if I didn’t do something to prompt this, each time that she writhes against my arms, clambering for not me, I feel myself shut down a little more. Feel my tone get more frustrated, more desperate. I worry that it’s becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. If she didn’t feel unsafe before, will she now? Every day, I pray to soften my body and being. To be more present, playful, flexible, and loving, both for T and her mama. And all of this feels like it’s pushing me in exactly the opposite direction.
But I suppose that’s the healing that’s called for right now. Perhaps I’ve done enough work to be soft when she wants me. Now it’s time for me to learn to soften when she doesn’t. Or just when she wants her mama. To learn that favor doesn’t have to be disfavor, and “mama” doesn’t have to mean “not me.” “One day, probably not too far in the future,” our couples therapist told me, “T will turn toward you. What can you do to take care of yourself so that, when that time comes, you’re there to receive her?” That’s the question that I’m sitting with right now.
—Anonymous