Susan Senator

I don’t mean to be flip, but sometimes I think I understand one aspect of Divorced Dad syndrome, because of how it is when Natty’s home: I spoil him. I feel the need to make up for the time he is not here, so I want to squeeze in all of the things he loves for the weekends. I try to get all of his favorite meals and treats, I bake with him, I encourage him to listen to his favorite CD and watch his favorite vids. I listen carefully to his self-talk to determine what he’s thinking about and wants. I leave him alone and then I can’t help myself and I intrude by touching his hair or kissing his face and inhaling his skin. I think it’s a mother’s right, because we were once attached physically, and because we don’t relate in the typical mother-son fashion, I feel more liberal to make my own rules. Mostly those rules are made in strict observation of Nat’s responses to me.

The downside is that I don’t feel quite natural with Nat anymore. I don’t feel our old relationship. I feel much more aware of him as a separate person, despite what I do (mentioned above). It is as if, when he comes home, I am straining to let him back into my life because I have to close up when he goes back. Even though these days I am relieved and happy when he goes back, because then I am free, I still feel a profound lack of him that is an open and gaping space inside me.

When Max and Ben go off somewhere for the day, I am also elated, but there is no guilt attached. I feel like I’ve earned it and that every mother in the world would agree with me on that. But when Nat goes off, and I feel elated to have time to myself and my other boys, and to have no worries about aggressions or tantrums, I at the same time feel that I have done something wrong to him.

The thing I think I’ve done wrong is to get on with my life without him in it every day. I know that so many would say that indeed, I have earned that, but I bet that if it happened to you, you would not be so quick to feel that way.

No, I am not ashamed that he has “Gone Residential.” I now see that this is a higher level for him, because there at The House he has learned how to get what he needs out of people who are not Mom and Dad. He has figured out how to get along with all kinds of kids. He is put to work every day, on household chores and shopping. He does conversational practice and plays with others. He would not get that here, except sporadically. Here he would get a lot of love and attention, which feeds his soul, and he would get a lot of sweets that would feed his body, but he is not asked to grow much here. I know that.

It is not shame that I feel. Or if it is, it is the shame that comes along with grief, when a person begins to let go of the missing one. They realize that they are not thinking of him every day. That they’ve done things with their former energy channels. That they seldom bake.

With Nat gone most of the time, I get to play and play with Ben. I never enjoyed playing with a child of mine the way I enjoy him. The way he anthropomorphizes his small stuffed creatures (Z-Brayes, Lobby the Lobster, tiny Link, Drop the Penguin, and Ramses the Ram) feels so believable to me. He has infused them with all of his own sweetness, and they have come alive to me, as beings that I protect (from Ned flicking them across the room, from Max putting them wayyyy up high out of Ben’s reach). I store them in my cardigan sleeves to soothe them when they get upset. I teach Z-Brayes how to skate along the dining room table. I stroke Lobby’s red ruffled back until he purrs in his bubbly-watery voice.

And then there’s Hannah, Max’s girlfriend, who has also come into my life fairly recently, kind of right when I needed it, and who allows me to have — well is this okay to say? — a daughter. I just love her. I have never known anyone like her, so much like a hoppy bunny. She is a beautiful creature, funny, devlish, innocent, smart, and just plain adorable, and it is beautiful for me to see how Max loves her. She is here most of the week, for dinner, and so I still have 5 to feed. When Nat comes home, it is 6, which also feels natural. I think I was meant to have a very large family.

Something has happened which has set me free to love and to nurture even more than before. When Nat moved out, it’s kind of like Z-Brayes and then Hannah moved in. Not because Nat moved out, but somehow, alongside that event, now I have even more loved ones to take care of.