Editor's Note: You'll Be a Man, My Son
*sniffle sniffle*
by Ada Calhoun
March 6, 2007
Last year, when I was four weeks pregnant, my husband and I went to the Christmas service at Grace Church. The little boy leading the choir stepped into the church and opened his mouth to sing the opening line of "Once in Royal David's City."
Once in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.
I promptly burst into tears and sobbed for two hours straight.
When we were putting the baby's room together a few months later, I had another two-hour crying jag, brought about by the Guys and Dolls song "More I Cannot Wish You" on the stereo.
Uncle Arvide sings it to Sarah, who thinks she should marry a responsible, noble man rather than the gambler she's in love with. It starts:
Velvet I can wish you for the collar of your coat,
And fortune smiling all along your way.
But more I cannot wish you than to wish you find your love,
Your own true love this day.
It's easy to forget that the whole goal of raising our babies is to prepare them to leave us.
I wanted exactly that for my son, too: love and happiness and so much more. And he wasn't even born yet.
Another song that reduced me to tears: Mates of State's "Nature and the Wreck," which has the sound of their baby cooing at the end.
Since the wreck, I know more what you need
You need me to put you in the trees
I know we haven't said enough
But I know I've never loved this much
In the midst of all the doctor visits and the crib assembly, it's easy to forget that the whole goal of raising our babies is to prepare them to leave us. Every new development stage, every inch they grow, they're that much closer to not needing us. It's usually some song that knocks that thought into my head (and the wind out of me), but I find myself sideswiped by this fact on a regular basis.
©2007 Ada Calhoun andNerve Media
About the Author
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Ada Calhoun was Babble's founding editor-in-chief. She has been a theater critic at New York magazine, an AOL News blogger and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review. She has written for Time, Salon.com and The New York Times Arts & Leisure. Her first book, Instinctive Parenting, will be published by Simon Spotlight in 2010. Visit adacalhoun.com. |
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