The Lovely Bones

There is a scene in The Lovely Bones (the book, I didn't see the movie) where the dead girl watches her mother make out with the homicide detective assigned to her case.  The dead girl had been the oldest and was 12 when she was murdered.  Watching her mother she realizes something that she had vaguely felt when she was living; that being a mother was a mask her mother put on when the first child woke up in the morning.

She knew her mother had been keeping time until the kids where grown and she could start her own life.  When her mother unexpectedly got pregnant again when the girls were half grown, it was like getting punched in the stomach.  She watched her mother deflate, and resign herself to THIS life.

About a year after her daughter's murder, tired of being the "dead girl's" mother, she ran away and started a new life, an anonymous life, somewhere else where she only had to take care of herself.  Where she was just Ruth, and not Carl's wife, or Laura's mother.  (All those names are made up because I can't remember the names in the book!)

I know there are plenty of people who would condemn her for that.  Who would think it was utterly selfish and she had no right to leave her family like that.

But I wonder how many women have watched their lives slip away like water while they are being a mother because it was expected of them.  It was just what you do because you're a woman, and your life can't be complete without it.  I wonder how many women wish they could run away, but are duty-bound to be the mom, the wife, the caretaker.  I wonder how many women strain against the routine of getting them up, getting them dressed, making their breakfast, making their lunch, getting them to school, cleaning the house, doing the grocery shopping, picking them up from school, making their snack, helping with homework, making dinner, getting them bathed, reading the bedtime story, putting them to bed, cleaning up from dinner, falling into bed.  Rinse and repeat.  Who dare not complain, or speak her dreams aloud for fear of being thought of as a bad mom, or ungrateful.

Granted, this book was set 40 years ago, and there are hopefully fewer instances now.  Although for some, I'm sure there is most of that squeezed around a full-time job.

And yes, I know there are many women who are fulfilled by motherhood, that WOULDN'T be complete without that experience. Who have waited all their lives for that moment of giving birth to that helpless little being who depends completely on her and is hers to shape and love.  Those women have the special gift of sacrifice that comes with devoting their life to the nurturing of little ones.  These are special and necessary, and god bless them.

I'm not talking about them.

I'm just wondering how prevalent the feeling is.  I was surprised to see it in the book.  I was surprised that anyone would admit those feelings exist, even in a fiction novel.