The Theory of Relativity

by John Ettorre

“As a baby, Natasha cried or screamed 16 to 18 hours a day. Their pediatrician called it the worst case of colic he ever saw.”

From a recent article detailing the reasons behind a New Jersey couple’s impending divorce.

Yep, I suppose that might just do it.

Now, I don’t want to seem flip about divorce in general nor about the problems of this couple in particular. After all, this sad situation could just as easily have happened to any of us. A thousand or so minutes of screaming each day could disrupt just about anyone’s equilibrium.

But here’s the good news: it’s all relative. And its good-news corollary: this too shall pass.

I was once a new parent, and like most of us in that vulnerable position, I remember feeling way in over my head. I recall one time when the job seemed especially overwhelming. Our oldest, then an infant, had developed a fever. Around 2 a.m., my wife and I groggily drew a tepid bath in an effort to lower his body temperature. We didn’t stay sleepy for long, because he was screaming with all the energy his tiny body could muster. But mostly, I can remember wondering – how will we ever make it through this?

We did, of course. In the end, time and experience heals all, or at least most, of what ails us as parents. If we seek out the counsel of wise veteran parents, that natural healing cycle happens even faster.

In my case, it was the warm and wonderful Mrs. P (the mother of my wife’s best childhood pal) who first began putting my concerns to rest, at a holiday cocktail party no less. “John,” she said with an appealing blend of world weariness and genuine concern, “This experience of being a parent of young children is but a moment of your life, relatively speaking.”

Ah, that word, relative. It summons its first cousin, relativity, a word made famous by Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity. As a world-class physicist, old Albert could fill several chalkboards with mathematical formulas explaining how time and space are less rigid concepts than one might expect. But for us laymen, he had a far more memorable explanation, laced with his trademark humor. “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”

And he’s right. Today, from the perspective of 15-plus years of parenting, I’m finally able to begin taking the long view. And those days when we spent much of our time worrying about our kids running into traffic or accidentally tumbling down the stairs, indeed seem but a short chapter in our lives. The problems and concerns may have shifted to even weightier issues. But experience has equipped us with a growing sense that, come what may, we can deal with it. And that changes everything.

This relativity as it relates to time is only intensified when combined with its twin – our natural human tendency to remember more of the good and forget much of the bad. And let me suggest that this tendency toward forgetting traumas is even more pronounced in many males, who are often better positioned to take the indulgent, rose-colored-glasses view of things, since (generally speaking) we didn’t deal at first hand with as many of the traumas as did our spouses.

I was reminded of my own occluded parental memory when recently I heard from a reader. Teri has become something of an authority on potty training, teaching overflowing classes on the subject and answering panicked calls from clients at all hours of the day.

As I listened to the story of how she serves this unusual educational niche, I was immediately forced to confront my own blank space on that part of the parental memory banks. I simply couldn’t recall ever having read about, talked about or even thought about potty training our two boys. Have I simply blocked out the memory of that task, or did it come so easily for my kids so as to have left little trace on the family. Or, more likely, was I simply not part of the process, instead ceding that job to my wife?

I say this by way of comforting you, dear parents, as you deal with whatever seemingly intractable problems you’re encountering in child-rearing at the moment. Just remember, much like that all-important first bowel movement, given time, this too shall pass.

John Ettorre is a Cleveland-based writer and editor who has also worked in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Over a 20-year career, his writing has appeared in more than 70 publications, including the New York Times. His online weblog, Working With Words, can be found at www.workingwithwords.blogspot.com. To reach John, send e-mail to: jettorre@voyager.net or leave a message at (440) 708-2994.