How a Single Hug Helped Me Rebuild My Family
Hug her. You should hug her.
My daughter and I were standing on an icy Brooklyn sidewalk in the darkness of an early morning in November. To our right was the glow of the stairway down to the subway she takes to her high school. Her school is in the Bronx, an hour and a half away—yes, only in New York City. Most of the year, the sun hasn’t risen when we head off for the train at 6:15 a.m., our very large but compulsively friendly dog with us as a useless safety measure. It’s our routine.
We are big on routine. Up at 5:15 a.m., followed by breakfast and coffee for my daughter. Daughter finishes homework—there is so much homework. 5:40 a.m. I drink coffee and wonder what decisions have delivered me, and her, to a place where we have to get up this early. I remind myself I know the answers. 5:45 a.m. I put on running clothes and meditate for 10 minutes, during which time my daughter routinely flips on the blinding overhead lights to use the mirror in my room. Wonder why meditation doesn’t seem to be working. Shoes on by 5:55 a.m., out the door by 6:10 a.m. Talk on walk to school for precisely five minutes about daughter’s stress and evening schedule.
But this morning was different. This morning the idea of hugging her occurred to me. My daughter, 16 at the time, flinched slightly as I reached for her in her puffy North Face. Hugging is not a part of the routine.
“I love you,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed probably too tight. “Have a good day.”
The words were new, too.
“Um, yeah, okay,” she’d said, a little warily, before pushing me off. “I have to go.”
And then she was gone, disappeared down the subway steps. Lost to the mysteries of her city kid, teenaged day. Despite the awkwardness of the moment, I felt elated. The hug, the I love you had felt right. Long overdue, actually.
It was a small victory, but in those dark November days, it felt monumental. Like the first rung of a very tall ladder had materialized in front of me. One step could lead to countless more, to a path forward. And I was desperately in need of a path forward.
My nearly 20-year marriage had recently ended in divorce, blowing apart the only adult life I had ever known. I’d lost routines and security and an identity and so many people that I loved. It had also placed in stark relief larger issues that I knew were related to my own childhood. For months, I’d felt like scorched earth.
But by that chilly morning at the top of the subway steps, I was beginning to figure some things out. I was working on lots of things about myself, many of them very difficult. I needed to rebuild—me, my family, my future. I needed to decide what kind of life I wanted now.
Love. That’s what I’d come up with. After so many years of feeling numb, I wanted much more love in my life—the warm, reckless, human kind. I wanted to love more people, more deeply. I wanted to set my heart on fire.
But that meant I had to live that way. I had to be different—here, now, every day. And so, I decided, quite consciously, to begin by showing a lot more love to the people in my life who were most deserving: my daughters. Starting with a simple hug.
This sounds bad, doesn’t it—to be so clueless about something so basic? I mean, what kind of mother doesn’t hug her daughters?
For the record, I have been a pretty good mother in many respects. When my daughters were little, I made sure their sleep was calculated at expert-approved intervals, their diet scientifically balanced. I was always there. Never was a recital missed or a school form left blank or homemade cupcakes for a birthday not baked. Our home was run with clockwork precision—full refrigerator, clean bathroom, socks with holes dispatched. And I’ve always gone to great lengths to remind my daughters that they are capable of anything, that they have the freedom to be whoever they want to be. I have tried to ensure that they know their own strength in their bones.
But the softer sides of mothering? The warmth and sweetness, the cuddling and comfort, the affection? Can’t say I exactly knocked any of those out of the park. I’m not sure I ever made contact with the ball.
The truth is, I’ve never had those kinds of maternal instincts. And by that, I mean: Even when they were little, it never instinctually occurred to me to hug my daughters or hold their hand or stroke their hair. Sometimes I went through the motions, but only because intellectually I knew that I was supposed to—and I am sure I was far less demonstrative than the average mother.
My own childhood was a thing I survived. Even now, decades later, I am sometimes surprised that I did. Growing up for me was a complex and terrifying maelstrom of emotional abuse and neglect, unpredictable rages and the abstract but relentless threat of violence.
Physical affection, warmth, tenderness? These were not things I expected as a child. Or felt I deserved.
I learned from a very young age to shut off, to disconnect. To not feel. Instead, I tried to become invincible. A machine. I worked hard at being competent and strong. I learned to use my mind instead of my heart to solve this problem of being human. Which, I gotta say, works pretty darn well. Until it does not work at all. As it turns out, no matter how well calculated, going into a marriage led more by your mind than your heart isn’t actually a recipe for long-term happiness.
I was aware enough to worry about how the damage from my childhood—both known and still unknown—might affect my ability to be a good mother. But I was also the product of years of therapy and self-help books, meditation and exercise. I had deep, life-long friendships, a rewarding work life, and a seemingly solid marriage. Overall, I’d been making a decent go of this life thing. And so after much deliberation, I decided that—as it had in so many other areas of my life—concerted effort could outweigh my potential constitutional shortcomings. I went on to have two daughters.
And I want to make one thing absolutely clear: I love my daughters fiercely. I’d give my life for them without hesitation. However, being their mother has not always been easy—for me or for them.
From the start, the only aspects of motherhood that came naturally to me were rules, order, and diligence. As though I were grooming soldiers for war instead of raising little ones. I realize now that this was because when I was growing up, control, order, and determination were the survival skills that kept me safe. That was all I knew—safe, or not safe.
But there are unexpected ways in which my childhood may have been useful. I came to this business of mothering with a blank slate. I accepted the moment I had a positive pregnancy test that I’d have to look for answers about how to mother, rather than resorting to some default setting. I knew that I would make lots of mistakes, too. So I sought out the parenting books and websites and wise friends who seemed to have such ease with it all. I asked endless questions.
Also, sooner or later, everyone ends up having to fight for their kid, in ways big and small. If you’re a child in need of a mother to step up to the plate for you, a survivor is a pretty good person to have the bat in her hands.
But in the year and a half since my divorce was finalized, I’ve come to realize that there is a more loving, softer person buried deep inside me. These days, she’s still climbing that tall ladder. Slowly but surely, she’s making her way.
And while I may not have been as affectionate and warm as I wish I’d been when my daughters were young, life is long. There’s still time to change.
But while anything can be learned, it does take practice. It’s just that easy—and precisely that hard. Every day I have to work very deliberately at the softer sides of being a mother, and a person.
When my older daughter calls from college in tears or in a rage, I have to remind myself—be warm, be warm—before I respond. I have to remind myself that my daughters need me even when there is no problem to solve. They need me to check in and ask how their day is going. To listen to their very detailed story about why last night’s concert (number 326, which they returned too late from) was the best ever. They need me to ask about what they ate and exactly what they saw in the museum on that spring break trip to a foreign city I’ve visited many times. To watch the video they made of a subway repeatedly passing by.
They need me to witness them. To love them. To make sure they know they matter simply because they are here. Meanwhile, I am still trying to learn the very same thing for myself. Luckily, if nothing else, motherhood has taught me how to multitask. And I believe wholeheartedly in the power of the future to make up for the past.
I will say that my daughters and I are very close. And I know this makes me lucky. Because, let’s face it, a lot of how this motherhood business turns out comes down to just dumb luck. We’ve weathered the volatile teenaged years largely unscathed. Okay, scathed, but still upright and ambulatory and talking and laughing—we laugh so much.
It’s spring now in Brooklyn, the cherry blossoms bursting into bloom, a year and a half after that first hug. Last week I was again walking my now 17-year-old daughter to the same top of the same subway stairs. Only light jackets on now, we were talking about something, I don’t recall what, college applications probably. As always, I waited until she started down the stairs before turning back toward home. But then I heard her call out: “Wait.”
I opened my arms as she came back to hug me.
You Might Also Like
