Columnist Scott Dickensheets': A wife/mother cares for a husband/child

SCOTT DICKENSHEETS' column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at [email protected] or 259-4082.

MOTHERHOOD, AS I have observed it from my spot on the couch, is hard, demanding work, and you have to admire those who are good at it. In an ideal world, the job would be farmed out to several subcontractors -- say, a traffic cop, a flying nun and the Army Corps of Engineers. But this isn't an ideal world, and the demands that motherhood puts on a woman's time, energy and sense of humor are enough to elicit a whistle of amazement and the thought, Boy, I'm glad I'm a man! This, then, is a salute to the best mother I've ever had.

I mean my wife, of course. Sure, my actual mom was great, a saint blessed with insight, forbearance, emotional stability and a knack for whipping up great meals from a few items found around the kitchen. But, when you think about it, all she did was give birth to me, change my diapers, suffer my transition to puberty and see me through my turbulent teens. Then, when the going really got tough, she handed me off to my wife. I believe her exact words were, "Now you can babysit him."

There's nothing Oedipal about this, you sickos; wifehood necessarily includes elements of motherhood. Like most guys who haven't advanced much beyond adolescence, I'm high-maintenance, an unreconstructed kid. I drop my socks where I take them off. I chafe at household rules. I turn surly when I don't get my way. This naturally forces my wife into certain motherly roles: sock cop, maternal scold, soother of cranky feelings. She's not alone in this. It's not uncommon to hear, say, a mother of three exclaim, "I have four kids, counting (husband's name here)." Other moms always laugh at that one.

Like a good mother, she is patient: As a very unhandy man, I'm baffled by such strange household appliances as hammers and screwdrivers. And no amount of my wife's patient teaching has made it possible for me to start the dishwasher. Instead of getting angry, she rolls her eyes and starts the dishwasher herself.

Like a good mother, she is understanding: I am incapable of leaving my job at the office, and therefore my wife suffers every tide change and wind shift in my dislike-hate relationship with my writing. I wear every bungled column home like a hair shirt, which, for the domestic good, she gently eases me out of by listing all the good things in life, then letting me watch basketball.

When I pace the house in a blocked funk, barnstorming another deadline, my neurobiology collapsing into fried circuits and loose wiring, she does what she can to help. "I'll get the kids out of the house so you can write," she'll say. "Get anything done?" she'll ask on her return. When I shake my head No, she'll pour me a soda and leave me alone some more.

Qualities like those are rare, and I think my wife stacks up pretty well against any of the mothers to the right. When she's not babying me, she's mothering our kids, attending UNLV full-time and working as a substitute teacher. The strain shows on her sometimes, and that's when I can, in some small way, return the favor. It usually requires no more than a few simple, heartfelt words: "It's halftime dear, want a hug?"

What I should do, of course, is thank her for everything. Since it's Mother's Day, here goes: For taking such good care of me, dear, I thank you. My mother is breathing a sigh of relief, too.

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