Scar

The experience of pregnancy, birth, and raising an infant obviously effects both a physical and an emotional transformation on the parents. Reaching that conclusion is not rocket science. However, it’s becoming clearer that people assume that the transition to parenthood also implies a personality transplant, emphasized by a complete lack of cynicism or sarcasm. Making fun at the expense of my child seems to be the biggest no-no, and surely the sign of a bad mothering instinct.

Pollyanna motherhood might be an assumed natural instinct, but isn’t it also human nature to prey on the weak? Face it—Harrison is an easy and defenseless target for parental mockery. And this kid doesn’t know the word ma-ma from the word da-da, so what’s the harm? I tell him that if he pulls my hair one more time I’m going to send him to the orphanage or leave him in a basket on the church doorstep. I ridicule him for orally pleasuring the base of his Fisher Price stacking rings. I occasionally refer to him as The Beast.

Again, let me emphasize that for all Harrison knows, I’m reciting the benign adventures of Noah and his ark. Yet voicing this sort of commentary in front of others usually provokes some sort of disapproving reaction. I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that, beloved though my boy is, when he sits there forcefully banging his head against the wall and smiling, he looks like a mental patient. “That’s not nice,” someone said to me the other day after I made a similar observation. When I noted that Harrison’s head scar would garner him street cred as a juvenile, Maureen, our day care provider said, “Aww… “ with pity. Was she feeling sorry for Harrison that he has such a horrific scar or that he has a mother that would make fun of it? I think it was the latter.

You should not think that these benevolent expressions are meant to save Harrison from maternal abuse, for usually they are made when Harrison is not even there. Sometimes they are made in reaction to a comment that I make to another adult over email. Like most parents, I believe that my son is hyper-intelligent, and maybe he does somehow understand me when I call him “Monster,” but I am not so delusional about my son’s abilities that I believe he can read. Or use a computer. Or hack into my email.

Please don’t be worried that Harrison’s going require lifelong psychotherapy when I write to you about my son, the mental patient. You should instead be thankful that I haven’t morphed into a saccharine June Cleaver. That would be more disturbing.