Walking with Persephone by Molly Remer

Author:Molly Remer [Remer, Molly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910559673
Publisher: Womancraft Publishing
Published: 2021-07-29T23:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Today, my second son is thirteen and I now have two teenage boys. So far, having teenage boys is easy and pleasant. I expected more changes or upheaval, but instead they are still them. The most difficult thing about parenting them now is about how they get along, or don’t, with the two younger children. The age gap between our children puts us into the position of needing to parent big kids and little kids at the same time, and the needs of the two differing groups are often at distinct odds. Last night this son, now teenager, asked me: Mom, what is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done? He pauses a beat and then adds with a laugh, Have kids?

I know he is joking, but I am serious when I reply that having him, specifically him — our second child — was the best decision of my life. I tell him that he transformed our experience of parenting for the better, that he brought joy into our family, that he changed the terrain of what it meant to have children, that he changed the landscape of parenting for us in the best possible way. He brought a priceless brotherhood dynamic in our family unit and that he taught us how meaningful, rewarding, and fun it can be to have kids.

He was born in a whirlwind labor, zooming into my life with dynamic passion, intense emotion, and heart with a force and power that has never ebbed. He was born when I surrendered my body to the freight train of labor and turned myself over to the might of creation moving through me. He was born in a bloody tangle of life and power that streaked my face, my arms, my legs, my chest, and even the bottoms of my feet with my own red blood and left a round, rusty stain on the concrete floor of our small cottage. His birth drove me to my knees and as the midwife passed him to me and I turned from my hands and knees into a sitting position and clasped him to my bloodstained chest, my older son cried out, I like him, I like him! We all still do.

When it was time to cut his cord, Lann stepped up to do it. And, as I nursed Zander in infancy, Lann would stand by my shoulder saying, Zander, you have to drink nursies, so you can grow bigger and then you can play with me! Zander has always been stalwart and loyal, firmly on the same team as his brother, ready to be friends from the moment of birth. Now, his voice is changing, hoarse and husky, because somehow he will be a man. He is only about three inches shorter than me, this person who once weighed nine pounds and slept with his head against my heart.

We open presents and I make him a pancake buffet with Nutella and fresh raspberries and whipped cream. I’m trying to figure it out,

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