A mom’s farewell
Laurie Sontag hangs up her hat
In June 2001, I wrote my first column for this paper. I started writing because I had become a parent and for the first time in my life I had become intimately acquainted with midnight barf-a-thons. There was also this strange, tiny person in the house who told me “no” all the time. I was not sure I liked parenting, but more importantly, I was positive I was horrible at it.
Worst of all, everywhere I looked there were perfect mommies. Their houses were spotless. Their children wore clean clothes. The moms themselves managed to take a shower before noon. I had no clue how they managed any of that. But me? Oh, heck no. Junior dressed like clown school’s reject who got caught in a dirt tornado, I rarely got a chance to shower until after dinner and my house looked like a LEGO factory.
But I figured that if I just wrote about it, somebody would see it and take pity on me and teach me the secret ways of the Perfect Mommies. Yeah. That didn’t actually happen. Instead, over the years I’ve met moms like me, not perfect and definitely not enjoying barf-a-thons. I love those moms.
I’ve also had some awesome readers who have never hesitated to tell me how they felt about the column. There were readers who identified with my struggles to make motherhood a success. And there were a couple of readers who didn’t like my use of the term “old farts” when I confessed my secret addiction to “Law & Order” reruns.
I’ve also been lucky enough to be part of the community of the South Valley for a really long time. And in being part of the community, I’ve created a very cool timeline of my son as he grew up. I have 16 years of our ups and downs, our mistakes and successes. That is the luckiest part of all of this. I can pinpoint his development for any given week or month during the last 16 years. It’s just amazing to have that.
I also had some personal success. From the column came a sort of successful, now defunct blog. I was part of 16 anthology books by various publishers and was even part of a syndicated column group for two entire weeks (hey, I take success where I can find it, even if it only lasts two weeks).
And now Junior is in college and has been for a while. I’m still a mom, but it’s a lot different now. Our relationship is moving from “clean your room” to “is there a chance you will graduate before your college fund runs out?”
But now it is time to move on. I’ve loved sharing my life with you. And to answer the question everyone has asked me, my husband and son have loved it too. I’ve got a new venture in the works and it’s going to take all the time I previously spent whining about barf-a-thons. I will miss this. But a new adventure awaits and well, I’ve never been one to miss out on a new adventure.
Thanks for reading. And remember, it’s OK to be an imperfect parent. It gives our children something to complain about during therapy.
- A mom’s farewell – May 14, 2017
