WWRD?

by Jennifer C. Cooke

A girl cannot survive with only one hero in her life. When I think of heroes and role models, many come to mind because life is so multi-faceted. I have different categories of hero for all areas, such as fashion (Shannon), cuisine (Sajil), interior design (Erin), creativity (JoAnn), music taste (Becky), patience (Lora), and career longevity (Madonna). I have a general, all-purpose "Lifetime Achievement" kind of heroine, my mother. And then I have my Mom Role Model, who is not my mother.

Rachel is the one I always turn to for parenting advice; she is the one whose style I try to emulate or at least incorporate as much as possible in raising my own child. To me, her concept of motherhood is the perfect blend of selflessness and self-actualization, affection and firmness, "kumbaya-ness" and practicality. She is a pragmatist who stays home with three children without ever resorting to the sort of child-centered overzealousness that so many of my other mom-friends do. My peers seem to run the gamut from people who seem to barely tolerate their children, to those whose entire existences are based on the Gymboree schedule. I don't think any of them is a bad parent. They just don't seem to live the kind of life I would want for myself.

I used to think that about Rachel, too. I could never do what she does, I vowed. These days, I'm not so sure.

Rachel and I went to high school together, and then attended college together at UC Berkeley. We were both considered "the smart girls," and it was assumed that we had great things ahead of us. In addition to being smart, Rachel is beautiful, talented in singing, dancing and acting, and came from a family of four sisters just as gorgeous and gifted as herself. But as Rachel was the eldest, she set the standard.

Rachel was always a bit of a hippie. I clowned her for this from the days when we were 14 years old, and it only got more pronounced when we went to Berkeley. She would take me shopping with her sturdy canvas bag at the Berkeley Bowl and make vegetarian meals that I had never tasted before. She rarely wore makeup and was frankly unconcerned with fashion, whereas I was slavish to MAC Diva lipstick and practically needed an intervention for my shopping habits. This scenario endures to this day for both of us. She majored in Social Welfare and I in Sociology. Then she got married and got pregnant right before we graduated. She went through the commencement ceremony, but didn't actually finish school.

Although I never revealed any of my misgivings to her, I was disappointed. As the years went by, she had more children, and with each pregnancy, my anxiety increased. Would she ever go back to school? Would she ever have a career? Would she waste her brilliant education in favor of being a housewife forever? What if her marriage didn't work out, what would she do then, with three children and no real work experience to speak of? Smart girls like us, I believed, were not supposed to "settle" for the life Rachel was living. I had gotten a good job with local government and was starting graduate school. I advanced quickly in my career. I married, and when I got pregnant with my son at 27, Rachel already had two kids and another on the way.

She gave birth to all three children at home, with a midwife and with none of the medication that I found so essential to my own birth experience. She stayed home with her kids and raised them in overalls, as vegetarians, with homemade arts and crafts projects and food grown in their own garden. She remained the intelligent and sharp woman she always was, never losing her acerbic wit or her political values. She still sang. When I visited, I found myself in awe of her. How did she do it? How could she contend with three small kids all the live-long day and still sit down with me and be the funny, smart, mouthy broad I always loved, holding court on the shameful state of current foreign policy? She didn't talk about the Wiggles. She told me what was going on with the education system in California and what she was doing to ensure quality schooling for her own children and the children in her community.

My own pregnancy gave me my first inkling that Rachel was my maternal role model. Rather than turning to the friends who were right next door, I found myself e-mailing her feverishly in the middle of the night to ask her how to handle whatever baby crisis I was having at the time. When everyone else used What to Expect When You're Expecting as their bible, Rachel told me that the book was bullshit and gave me a list of no less than 15 alternatives by author and title. When I sat down with my other friends and their kids, I always thought, "Rachel wouldn't do that," or "Rachel would handle this so much better." She became my parenting barometer right from the start. You know how people wear those buttons that say "WWJD (What Would Jesus Do)?" I need one that says "WWRD?"

What makes her such a great mom? She is simply the most natural, spontaneous parent I've ever known. Her instinctual calm with her kids makes her absolutely unflappable, but not in a fastidious or stiff way. And this is not just the wisdom that comes through years of practice it seems she has always known just what to do, from the word go. She has definite plans and ideas of how she wants to raise her children, but she maintains flexibility and a sense of humor. Even when her own mother thwarted her efforts to keep the kids completely away from sugar a feat that she accomplished successfully for a full 18 months of Ellie's life!! she didn't get angry or decide the sky was falling. Every young mom I knew was anxious, unsure, and ready to cry if they or their child didn't do everything exactly as Dr. Brazelton outlined. Rachel just laughed as she described Ellie's newfound sugar addiction.

Rachel once let one-year-old Seiji play on a reclining chair that looked precariously wobbly. I was nervous the whole time, wondering, "Why doesn't she make him get down from there?" Even though there was a pile of cushions below him, I couldn't shake the fear that he'd fall and injure himself. Rachel just kept talking, and said "Well, if he falls, he'll learn not to do that again." And you know what? He didn't fall. And she didn't waste her energy waiting for a tragedy that would probably never happen. This basic concept, on a grander scale, is what I so admire about her mothering style.

When I found childrearing to be the biggest challenge of my entire life, when post-partum depression and an emotionally abusive marriage threatened to do me in completely, it was Rachel whose words rang in my head, spurring me on to get some help and get it NOW. I was a basket case for the first four months of my son's life, and Rachel took me out of the dumps on several occasions. She revealed her "secret" to me that she is not a Supermom. She told me the real deal about how sometimes she wanted to pull her hair out or strangle her kids. I'd always thought she was impervious to the insecurities that plagued me. But she isn't. There is no magic or mystery behind the fact that she is a good mother. And she made me believe that I could be a good mother, too.

Rachel did eventually go back and finish her degree, an accomplishment made so much more noteworthy since she'd done it with her kids in tow. She became a midwife and childbirth educator. She still does this occasionally, but first and foremost, she has spent the last 10 years being a wife and a mother to Ellie, Seiji and Nathaniel. She sent me pictures of their Easter celebration recently. I looked at Ellie and saw Rachel's face, not so many years younger than when I first knew her as a girl. The children are exceptional, happy, and confident. They are so blessed to have their mother home with them! My mother couldn't afford to stay home with me, and I can't afford to do it with my child. I have no regrets about that. But I remember all the times I thought Rachel "should be doing something with her life." What strikes me now is not only my incredible arrogance, but that I was wrong. What more important thing could Rachel possibly do than to raise this amazing family?

Today, I find myself thinking about the future much more than before. When I am old, am I going to care that I brought home a nice paycheck every two weeks so that I could pay my mortgage and have enough money left over for a nice handbag and dinner out? Sure, I am glad I have that. But I am more thankful that I will have a beautiful son to come home for Christmas dinner. Maybe he will have a wife and children of his own. I picture all of Rachel's children, and their eventual families. My priorities simply aren't the same as they were when I was an idealistic Berkeley grad. In fact, I may switch gears at this stage of my life and focus on having more children. If I do, I will feel free to phone to Rachel on those sleepless nights, since it was partially her example that led me there.

The Author

Jennifer C. Cooke is a freelance writer based in California. She is currently working on a memoir, as well as a nonfiction book profiling middle-class people who make their living solely through their art, be it music, acting, tattooing, photography or writing. She lives in San Diego with her husband Paul and son Sean Declan.