The School for Good Mothers(10)
She let Gust talk her into a no-fault divorce. He convinced her that having marital misconduct on the legal record would be damaging for Harriet. When Harriet is older, Gust said, they’ll explain to her that Mommy and Daddy decided they’re better off as friends.
Soon after claiming Gust, Susanna began voicing her opinions. She’d been a camp counselor in high school. In college, she’d nannied. She’d spent lots of time with her nieces and nephews. Emails began to appear, then texts. Frida should eliminate all plastic from her household. Exposure to plastics is linked to cancer. She should install a water filtration system so Harriet won’t be exposed to heavy metals and chlorine in her drinking water or at bath time. She should make sure all of Harriet’s clothing is made from organic cotton in factories that provide a living wage. She should buy organic skin care and diapers and burp cloths and bedding, chemical-free wipes. Would Frida consider switching to cloth diapers? Plenty of Susanna’s sister’s mom friends used cloth diapers. She should try elimination communication. Wasn’t that how they did things in China? Frida should have some healing, grounding crystals in the nursery. Susanna would be happy to give Frida some rose quartz to start her off. The crib at Frida’s house came from IKEA, and didn’t Frida know that particle board was made of sawdust and formaldehyde? By the time Susanna began nagging her about the benefits of long-term breastfeeding and babywearing and co-sleeping, Frida was moved to pick up the phone and rail at Gust, who said: “Remember, it’s coming from a good place.”
She made him promise not to let Susanna experiment on their baby. No early potty learning, no crystals, no co-sleeping, no pre-chewing each bite of Harriet’s food. In the past year, Susanna earned her certification as a nutritionist, intended to complement her occasional work as a Pilates instructor. Frida often worries that Susanna is mixing chlorella and spirulina into Harriet’s food and treating Harriet with essential oils or detoxifying mud baths when she has a runny nose or ear infection. They’ve had heated arguments about vaccines and herd immunity. Gust has already removed his mercury fillings, and so has Susanna. Soon, they’ll try for a baby of their own, but first they’re going to heal their cavities through herbs and meditation and good intentions.
The women first met in June of last year when Frida was dropping Harriet off for the weekend. Gust had moved into Susanna’s loft in Fishtown, while Frida still lived in their first house in Bella Vista. They’d been separated for only a few weeks. Nights she could keep Harriet for nursing, but Gust got the baby on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and Frida had to deliver both the baby and bottles of pumped milk. That day, Susanna answered the door wearing only Gust’s shirt. She had a proud and drowsy gaze that made Frida want to scratch her. Frida didn’t want to hand her child to this just-fucked woman, but Gust came and took Harriet from her arms, and he looked happy, not happy like a man who’d found new love, but happy like a dog.
When Susanna reached for the cooler of milk, Frida snapped at her. Only the parents should handle the milk.
“Please, Frida, be reasonable,” Gust said.
As they headed upstairs with Harriet, Frida hoped they wouldn’t kiss in front of the baby, but as she walked away, she realized that they would kiss and rub and grab in front of Harriet, maybe even make love while the baby slept in the same room. In her father’s home, Harriet would see love thrive and grow.
* * *
It’s Saturday night. Early. Harriet’s dinnertime. Frida sits at her kitchen table watching the minutes pass on the digital clock above the stove. She kicks at the leg of Harriet’s high chair. Gust and Susanna might not be giving Harriet enough to eat. Susanna probably took her to the park today and chattered incessantly, narrating her every move. Susanna never stops talking. She read some book about how babies and toddlers need to hear ten thousand words a day, from birth until age five, in order to be prepared for kindergarten.
Though she eventually caved, Frida used to find American-mother babble pitiful. Other mothers shot her disapproving looks when she pushed Harriet on the swings silently, when she sat at the edge of the sandbox and tried to skim the New Yorker while Harriet played alone. She was sometimes assumed to be a distracted nanny. Once, when Harriet was seven months old, there was a mother who outright scolded her as Harriet crawled around the playground. Why wasn’t she watching her baby? What if the baby picked up a rock and tried to swallow it and choked?
Frida didn’t try to defend herself. She grabbed Harriet and hurried home, never returning to that playground, even though it was the closest and cleanest one.
The playground mothers frightened her. She couldn’t match their fervor or skill, hadn’t done enough research, stopped breastfeeding after five months when these women were still cheerfully nursing three-year-olds.
She thought that becoming a mother would mean joining a community, but the mothers she’s met are as petty as newly minted sorority sisters, a self-appointed task force hewing to a maternal hard line. Women who only talk about their children bore her. She has little enthusiasm for the banal, repetitive world of toddlers but believes things will improve once Harriet goes to preschool, once they can converse. It wasn’t that Frida didn’t have ideas about child-rearing. She liked that book about French parenting, but Gust was horrified at the idea of sleep training Harriet at three months, the idea of prioritizing their adult needs. The ethos of that book was selfish.