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This entry, Sprint Mothering, by one of my very favorite bloggers, has me bawling at my desk.

Oh. Wow. The yelling. The waves of excellence followed by the benign neglect. The intense love and the intense aggravation. The sprinting. This is very familiar to me, and my heart aches with the familiarity of what she describes, the way I recognize both the limits (mostly) and brilliance (occasional) of this style of parenting (and, frankly, of living).

How resonant are these drawbacks: “I lack the grace. I lack the stamina. I lack the serenity, the even keel.” Ah. Yes. That’s me. I am awkward, I am graceless, I trip a lot, I fail frequently and boldly, and I am so, so rarely serene.

And the passage that really reached in and grabbed me is here. These are the kind of words I could never write, the kind of words that describe so articulately and elegantly the murky and ambiguous feelings of my heart. The kind of words that make me grateful that their writer lives, and writes.

I know my job description cold. My job is to use the “my” pronoun gently. “My” daughters. “My” girls. I use “my” for the sake of convenience, and as a reflection of my stunned pride that such beautiful bright creatures passed through me on the way to this lifetime. But you belong to you, in the end. And I want to teach you to belong to you.

So I try to make my great mother-sprints count. When I talk to you, I talk to you strong and bold and hard and real. I talk to you about Death and Religion and Puberty and Bullies and Vaginas and Childbirth and Periods and Kidnappers and Murder and Friendship and Divorce and Anger and Joy and Vocation.

But I also believe in a good helping of benign neglect, for my present sanity, and for your future sanity.

I do not dote on you. I am not, have never been, a doting mom. I think right now you would like it very much—no, I KNOW you would like this very much—if I doted on you, if I constructed a life that revolved around you, a whirling carousel of mirrors and endless brass rings for you to grab and carelessly discard.

I refuse. I love you, and this is why I refuse you so much of what you think you must have.

I want you to grow up central only to yourself. I want you to find your center, to be your own pivot, your own point of balance, your own anchor. I don’t ever want you thinking you are the center of the universe, and be shocked to find that it is not at your beck and call. You are each completely unique, but you are no more special than any other person walking this planet. That’s not tough love. That’s love that will serve you well and teach you to keep your eyes open to the uniqueness and beauty in others.

~ Philo

But please, God, I need a vacation from my vacation. Calgon?

More excellent parenting feedback today.

At the beach, Whit was unhappy when I kept “redirecting” him from knocking down Grace’s sandcastles. Finally, in exasperation, he yelled at the top of his lungs: “You are a BAD MUMMY!” I know, I know, he was just using his power to manipulate and twisting the knife that he knows how to expertly insert for maximum pain. Still, it worked: I burst into tears in front of the assembled masses (thankfully not a huge crowd) on Silvershell Beach.

Then at dinner I told Grace we were going to buy ice cream to have at home vs. go to the Oxford Creamery for cones (since we needed a ton of time at home to do another lice-comb session). She burst into tears and said, trembling lips and brimming eyes and all, “You have broken my heart, Mummy.” She has, perhaps, inherited my gift for melodrama; still, it didn’t make me feel too hot after what has felt like a long and difficult day.

Yes. I know. I’ve failed at something else. Thank you all.