Kid Cudi, Parent Whisperer

If I squinched up my eyes and tilted my head and really looked at my unshiny life, I could sort of see… glimmering?

Liz Sarb

I doubt Kid Cudi intended his song “Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare)” to strike a chord with me: an uncool mother of four en route to soccer practice. An ode to rebellion, and risk-taking, and Carpe Diem (and, ok, drugs), the song has always made me feel dowdy and basic and hands-on-the-wheel. I’m never driving drunk, doing my thing.

Quite the opposite. Last summer, my husband and I were asked—out of the blue, for a mess of reasons—to adopt a newborn baby into our existing brood.

Parents of newborns aren’t windows-wide hurtling down the highway on a summer night; we’re sobbing with exhaustion while the baby cluster feeds. In fact, parents of newborns plus toddlers avoid driving entirely if we can help it; it’s harder than CrossFit to buckle an army of children into car seats. 

But soccer schedules don’t care if a surprise baby just joined the family, which is how, a few days into our new normal, I found myself hauling kids into car seats and snapping endless harnesses. Blearily, I tugged the car into gear. Blearily, I heard the epic opening chords of Kid Cudi’s song drift through the speakers.

“Great,” I thought, positioning my hands at a responsible ten and two. “Chase your glitter. I’ll be over here in my mom-van wearing old t-shirts because I’m essentially a human-sized spit-up cloth.” 

Absently, I scratched at a swollen earlobe while thinking about how anti-glitter my life had become. I’d recently developed an allergy to earrings. Hott.

Tell me what you know about dreams. 

The lyrics interrupted my brooding and I snorted. Really, what did I know about dreams? Maybe I wanted to be something once? It felt hard to remember under the layers of bottles microwaved and floors swept and diapers changed. Was Frazzled, Harried, Working Mom the thing I had dreamed of being?

Tell me what you know about night terrors, the song persisted. 

Interesting. Maybe Kid wasn’t taunting me. I considered this, stopping the busload of mewling children at an intersection. Maybe he was… checking in?

“Well,” I thought, “I do actually know a thing or two about night terrors. I’ve been calming my oldest as she thrashes through them since the baby arrived. It’s awful.”

I know, the song assured me, Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold. 

I braked.

My existence at the moment: patently un-shiny.

But it’s dusty, sweaty work to unearth gold.

If I squinched up my eyes and tilted my head and really looked at my unshiny life, I could sort of see… glimmering? Beyond the wails and diapers and sleeplessness, I could see the kids bunched around our dinner table, giggling their way through family game nights. I could see first days of school, camping trips, snowball fights, little tongues licking batter from the mixing bowl. Realization crackled through me.

I’m on the pursuit of happiness.

We had just scrapped our every plan to welcome a surprise new family member. 

Hands on the wheel? Uh uh. Fuck that.

Maybe I’m not just a dowdy mom. Maybe I, too, am a rebel. These stained t-shirts and swollen earlobes? Totally punk. Maybe I’m rolling the Midwest side and out with a child on each hip and in each arm. Maybe I’m still carpe-ing the crap out of each exhausting, slogging diem.

I parked at the soccer field, scrubbed at my tears, and climbed out to wage war against four car seats.

It’s been a year since that drive. Parenting four small children continues to be dusty, sweaty work. Like so many families, we have dragged our way through RSV and COVID, layoffs, inaccessible childcare, noise-rage, and ever-tightening budgets. We lack sleep. We lack space.  

My husband and I sit on the kitchen floor, boring and responsible, watching the child who was—just last summer—a newborn. Somehow, he has turned into a toddler. Somehow, he’s taking his first steps. The older three dance and cheer behind him and “Pursuit of Happiness” unspools through my mind.

If I fall, if I die
Know I lived it to the fullest.

“Gold,” I whisper, as the unsteady baby tumbles into my arms.