Me and my mother, sometime in the early ’80s

For Patricia.

When your child is still very small, teach them how to knit, how to draw a bath, how to bake a pie, how to make a bed, and how to serve tea. When they grow up, if they are unwell in any capacity always suggest a cup of English breakfast (with a splash of milk), a hot bath (with lavender salts), clean sheets (with crisp corners), and some sort of sugary pick-me-up — homemade preferable.

When your child is nine, and the other kids in their class are sorted into two groups (one group considered the “good readers,” and granted access to the “Great Books Club” that meets once a week in the library, and the other group, unnamed, forced to busy themselves with chores and mundane activities in the classroom), recognize that something is wrong and tease the fact that your child was not chosen for Great Books out during carpool so that you don’t have to see their eyes when they tell you they think they must be very bad at reading.

Take them to Dutton’s and wave your hands at the stacked shelves, making sure your face is close to your child’s when you say, “You can have any book you want. Pick as many as you can carry.”

Leave with every book L.M. Montgomery has ever written and a month later, when your child has finished them all, go back and do it again. Continue this tradition well beyond the B.A. your child earns in English literature and the M.F.A. they end up with in creative writing. Continue to buy them all of the books — great ones and otherwise.

When they are 12 and everyone they know is getting bar and bat mitzvah’d, break the news gently that you will not be buying them a new dress for every party but agree to let them pick one perfect gown to be used throughout the season. Take them to Bullock’s department store in Westwood Village. When you enter the marble-floored, high-ceilinged lobby, dodge the elegant salesgirls all trying to lure you to their makeup counters and go straight to the dress department. Allow your child to try on gown after gown but when you can’t find something satin and strapless and colorful with a big bubble skirt, buy one instead that is satin and strapless but also black and floor length. That night when your child goes to bed despondent, convinced they are going to look like Morticia Addams at the next weekend’s soiree, stay up all night trimming the dress in gorgeous jewel tones and altering the skirt until it is a mini bubble poofy enough to rival the very best of 1989. Sit back and smile as your child hava nagila’s in that masterpiece for the better part of the next two years.

At 17, after they suffer their first devastating heartbreak and you come home from work to find them crying hysterically in a ball on the floor, pick them up and give them tea and a bath and then, when they are still not better, climb into their bed with them and light one of the cigarettes you’re pretty sure they’ve stolen from the pack you use for emergencies, and pass it back and forth between you, even though neither one of you are really smokers. Tell your child what you learned a year earlier when their father left you for someone else; say, “No one will ever hurt you like this again,” and when your child, still crying, asks how you could possibly know that, answer in the calmest and most reassuring tone either of you has ever heard, “Because you’ll never let them.”

At 19, when your child is barely two weeks into classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and calls home to complain about what they think might be a UTI, take a moment of silence and then demand that they go get a pregnancy test, even though you know, from experience, that this is the moment their childhood is going to end. When they go to a clinic in Illinois and are forced to watch graphic abortion videos and told to think hard about what they want to do before returning in three weeks, put them on a plane and bring them home immediately. Hold their hand during the abortion even though you yourself are trying not to cry and when it’s over, drive them home and put them in your bed.

When your child offers to pay you back for the procedure, tell them you’ve got it covered. If they wake up later that day, still groggy from the Valium they took at the doctor’s office, and see that their significant other is harnessed to the side of the house, pretend not to notice as they hobble to the balcony door and ask said person what they’re doing. Hide your satisfaction when you hear, “I’m washing the windows,” and then after a pause, “for your mother.”

At 20 years old, when your child is still struggling in the aftermath of their unwanted pregnancy and drops out of art school to come back home to Idaho, be supportive of their decision to move in with the window washer who is seven years older and makes his living tuning skis and mowing lawns. Stay silent as these two make plans to spend their lives together but when your child decides they want to finish college and saves up money to study Shakespeare overseas, buy them the collected works and make a passport appointment ASAP.

If, halfway through the summer, the window washer calls your child in London and tells them that he’s accidentally had a baby with someone else, immediately wire your child $1,000 and tell them not to come home. Offer to go get your child’s things at the window washer’s house and buy your child a Eurorail pass. If your child sobs into the phone and decries that the best summer of their life has been ruined, make your voice loud and clear when you say, “You’re free now. Go enjoy it.”

When your child’s money runs out but they still can’t face coming home, call your old college roommate and devise a plan. When your child arrives back in the states, send them straight to Santa Cruz where their clothes are already hanging in your friend’s spare closet and all of their classes at the Aptos community college have already been registered for.

Three months later when your child transfers to UCSC and declares an English major, tell them how never once did you doubt that they’d get there.

At 25 years old, when terrorists fly planes into the World Trade Center and your child develops a sort of generalized anxiety disorder that results in them binge-watching the news and refusing to leave their apartment, send a case of yarn, a set of needles, and a book of patterns. Tell them, “The best way to way to unseat your fear is by using your hands.” Cheer them on over the next few months as they knit a bikini, two cowls, and 10 hats and then finally decide on their own that they are ready to get out of bed and go back to work.

VIII.

At 28 when your child announces that they are engaged, squeal with excitement and then demand that they hide some money where no one else can find it. Tell them it is “just in case” they ever change their mind or need a way out.

At 33, after two miscarriages, when your child is finally bringing home a healthy baby, greet them and their husband at the door of their little home and welcome your first grandson with open arms. Hours later if your child’s milk has still not come in and they say it feels like the walls are closing in on them, take your grandson and send your child to bed. Lie to them and say, “You can’t be a good mom if you aren’t well-rested.” And when, the next morning, your child realizes you never went to sleep but instead sat up all night rocking the distraught baby, act like you aren’t exhausted and aching all over and instead offer to make breakfast and do the dishes.

When your child is 45 and convinced the world is ending, calm her fears by calling her every day and letting her know that you’re still here. If a day passes without you two talking and you worry about how she’s faring, be assured that no matter how busy or stressed or unhinged she might be, there is always warm tea, homemade treats, hot baths, and clean sheets. When you check in next, remind her to read a book, knit a scarf, and hug her children, and when she does, know that it is because of you that her life is so full and meaningful, know that you have made a mother.