The Poo went to a soccer camp two weeks ago—every morning from 9 to 10:30 for a week. The clinic was part of a program that brings coaches over from the UK and travels the nation, putting on these five-day events all over the country.

We started talking in the spring about signing her up for something sports-related this summer. The Poo is an active kid, and she seems to have some athletic inclinations, despite her inherited clumsiness and some distinctly un-athletic DNA from her mother.

The Poo doesn’t dive into new things. It takes time for her to warm up, and despite her excitement over soccer camp, I knew the first day would be touch-and-go. Upon their return home that morning, Mr. C’s report was about what I expected.

She was anxious at first, but managed to get in there and play, too. The next day she struggled a little, balking at the rules, but she was also the high-scoring participant that day, kicking two goals.

I was proud; she was, too. But I had to pry the good stuff out—when I asked her how her morning was, she poured out all her complaints: It was too hot, she didn’t want to yell when she was told to, she got wet.

My girl, she leads with the negative.

As an adolescent, my parents loved to regale me with tales of my obstinate, glass-half-full escapades. “We called you the ‘I Can’t Kid,’” my father would say, my mother echoing his sentiments.

I quit baseball before I ever joined Little League, I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 8 years old, I hated math because I didn’t just “get it” the first time.

I gave up. A lot.

On the last day of soccer camp, The Poo and her father arrived home earlier than I expected. “How was it?” I asked, looking up from my spot on the floor with The Babyman.

My husband’s face was stony, the girl’s was streaked with tears. She stood before me, cheeks flushed, and announced: “I had a temper tantrum.”

The real story is that she refused to play. She got wet, she got dirty, she got pushed down by a boy. The final indignity was that she was assigned to a scrimmage squad that didn’t get to wear pinnies.

Her father was disgusted with her, and issued a consequence for her behavior. No TV for 24 hours. She stormed to her room, weeping all the while. My husband sat and wiped off his forehead.

He told me how he wanted to have a good time, and that he had high hopes. But that the girl would not cooperate. She could not be flexible. She hated everything.

“She could be really good at this,” he said. “But she just won’t try. She just wants to complain.”

His words hit me as hard as any blow. They are words that have been applied to me throughout my life, words that I dismissed as unfair criticism.

Words that are, if I am honest, accurate.

Later, after my husband left for work, I sat with my daughter on the couch and tried to coax out of her why she wouldn’t play, why she wasted the last day of her special camp crying and fussing.

“I just get so upset, and then I can’t calm down,” she whispered, burying her face in my armpit.

I held her, and tried to find the words to lead her down a different path. To tell her that she’ll taste bitterness, but it’s the sweet that matters. I tried to tell her these things, the sound of it ringing false in my ears as I thought of all the times I stood on a metaphorical field, refusing to step on the pitch for fear of failing.

Raising a child throws your own flaws into such stark relief. I do not want my daughter to see the dark instead of the light. I want her life to be mostly sunny, with just a chance of passing clouds. How do I do that when my own perspective is so often one that denies any silver lining?

All I can do is keep trying. All I can do is point out to her that if she never tries, she can’t succeed. This I know, first-hand. And now I know what it must have been like for my own parents. If my parents had said “I can’t,” I wouldn’t be here now, putting words on a page.

They worked their fingers to the bone to give me baseball bats and bicycles, and I accepted these gifts believing that I could never use them well enough to make up for the effort that went into bestowing them.

Now, I work so hard to give our children every opportunity to shine. But how can I expect my sensitive, empathetic daughter to walk lightly into the world with the heavy weight of my past on her shoulders?

I think this is what you call “payback.”

He reaches out to me, cheeks wet with tears. His chest rises in a tremendous sob, snot running from his little nose.

Mumum, Mumum!

I lean over the high rail of his crib to rescue him from a hot tangle of blankets and lovies. His brown monkey looks up at us as I lift the baby to safety. I press my face to his face, and his body shakes with sadness.

Mumum, Mumum!

In the next room, I hear the low rumble of my husband’s voice, and my daughter’s high, wavering counterpoint. They argue; she yells and begins to wail in anger. I hear him count to three, then the gurgle of water draining from the tub.

With my little boy still pressed against my neck, and I shut the door on the sounds of my oldest child’s despair.

I should go to her, but I want to hold this fleeting baby sweetness in the palm of my hand.

***

He plays with me, his bright blue eyes alight with the furious pace of his intellectual development. Throw Mama the ball, I tell him. He lobs the sphere at me with his left hand, hooting and grinning wildly. Walk to Mama, I tell him. He squats, pushes up with his knees and toddles over to me, tilting this way and that, as if he can feel the earth’s rotation beneath his feet.

I clap and giggle with delight when he collapses in my lap. Just for a moment, he lays his head on my chest, and pats my arm. The gesture is fleeting and a sharp pain flashes through me when he gets up again, on the move, discovering the world.

She stands nearby, arms folded across her chest.

Play with me, she says, her eyes both challenging me and pleading with me. Play Polly Pockets.

Baby girl, you know we can’t play Pollys when the baby is awake, I tell her gently. The baby pulls my pants and I laugh.

You don’t love me, she mutters, and flees the room before I can reply, and the moment passes.

***

I lay on the bed with her, the scent of soap and shampoo envelopes us. Her damp curls look as dark as midnight against the pastel pillow, and her satin princess nightie swirls around her perfectly formed calves.

She looks up at me with her hazel eyes and asks for one more story. I consent, reluctant to let go of her warm, freshly bathed body.

I hold her a little too hard when the story is over. I press her against me, yearning to make her small again, drinking in her girlhood. She looks up at me, parts her rosebud lips.

Mama, do you still love me?

My heart shatters as I tell her again and again how I love her, all the ways in which she makes my life complete. I praise her, I compliment her, I caress her soft forearm and kiss her fingers one by one.

You are my heart, my love, my firstborn, I tell her. You made us a family.

Over the monitor the baby wails. I get up and turn the volume down, squelching his cries. I return to the bed, for a forbidden third bedtime story.

I never identified myself using labels.

That isn’t to say that I can’t be labeled. I am many things: wife, daughter, sister, friend, mother, partner, writer, worker, sister … the list is long. Many of the labels I’ve worn include “not”—not popular, not outgoing.

But when it comes to -isms, I just don’t think about them. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some kind of self-serving sermon about how I am above being labeled or how I’m just so cool and so out there that labels don’t apply to me. In fact, I am a very mainstream person. I like cable TV and J. Crew and the potato is my all-time favorite food.

No, it isn’t that.

Take feminism, for instance. Could you define me as a feminist? In the classical sense, no. But in the way I live my life, making choices that are best for me in terms of work and family, then yes, you could call me a feminist. When it came time for me to choose a profession, I made the decision based not on my gender, but on my passion.

I wanted to be a reporter. It never occurred to me to think about myself as a “female reporter.” Then I wanted to stay home with my daughter. So could you call me a SAHM? Yeah, you could, and sometimes I call myself that, too, because it is the easiest, most literal way to describe my life to outsiders.

I am a mom. I stayed home with my kids.

Now, I spend many hours of my week writing for money. So that makes me a WAHM, right? And that makes YOU a WOHM, right? And what if you work part-time? Are you a PTSAHM or a PTWOHM?

All this alphabet soup only serves to mire us in the very thing we say we seek so hard to avoid. We say we want to love and support one another. But we find new and interesting ways to point the finger at each other and pin these labels on our backs so that we can point with the power of a crowd behind us.

At what point do we let the crowd become a community?

At what point do we stop fighting among ourselves and act like the loving, caring woman—yes, women—that we are inside our hearts? When do we realize that words are powerful, and labels are among the strongest weapons in our arsenal, for good and for bad?

Words like retard and stupid and hate and ugly and fat are as hurtful as bullets. They wound, and the scars are tender for a lifetime.

Words like SAHM and WAHM and WOHM and hipster parent and helicopter parent and bad mother … these are all words that are at once meaningless and more profound than we can ever fathom. We use these words, sometimes thoughtfully, to provoke debate, and sometimes emotionally, because we are tired and frustrated and we just know the grass is greener over there, for that person wearing the label we covet.

***

She was a woman in a male-dominated corporate culture, the kind of woman who takes her earring off to talk on the phone. She had her colors done and charged it to the company as a “development opportunity.” She wore scarves in creative ways and had the kind of haircut you see on a certain kind of marketing executive who came of age during the second round of the feminist revolution.

This is the woman for whom the battle was fought. The marching and the protesting, and all the tears and sweat and blood of those early revolutionaries in fact created this woman.

She would do anything to get ahead. She would shake your hand while stabbing you in the back. Her every move was calculated to build the next rung on her ladder to the top. She called herself a “champion for women” and one day, she told me that I would move up a lot faster if I would only wear more make-up.

And a skirt wouldn’t hurt my chances, either.

If you give me the choice between working for a woman, and working for a man, I say give me the man. He and I both know how he is going to behave. He’s going to act like a dick sometimes, and we shake hands on that. Women are more complicated. We circle each other like wary cats, waiting for the first strike.

***

My daughter was sick last weekend, and I perfer to tend to the wee ones when they are unwell. I have so many memories of my mother’s cool hand on my hot forehead. I cherish those memories; they make me feel safe and cared for even now, when the dark middle of the night wraps its hands around my neck and I struggle with all the worries in my heart.

So I bundled her up, my little girl, and held her head while she vomited in a towel. I pushed her hair out of her eyes and fetched her cold water. Drink it in tiny sips, I told her. Mama’s right here with you, I told her.

She lay next to me, and she reached out with her hand. I took her small palm in my own and squeezed gently. “Mama,” she whispered. “You are the bestest mama of all the mamas. Bester than anyone else’s mama.”

And just like that, my girl, she labeled me. It is a badge I wear with pride, the only label that need apply. It is a label 38 years in the making, one delivered with the purity of soul that can only be achieved when your heart is new.

These are the labels that matter.

I had a whole big post in mind, one that touches on some of the Big And Serious Issues that are going around in the newest, bloody battle on the front lines of The Mommy Wars.

Then this happened:

So you’ll have to excuse me. I am at once ridiculously proud and ridiculously horrified. This was taken around 1 p.m. By 6 p.m., he was RUNNING.

No wonder I have a headache.

“I don’t remember my first Father’s Day,” my husband says. Our children play and shriek at his feet. He looks at me over the head of our oldest, our daughter, with a half-smile on his face.

I look at him for a minute, then I remember. “We went to the cemetery,” I say. “With my mom. It was the first Father’s Day without my dad.”

***

We go grocery shopping on Sundays. We all go; The Poo gets a cookie, The Babyman likes to eat baby Goldfish crackers before we pay for them. I stash the open sack in my diaper bag, making a mental note to remember to pay for it when we get to the cashier.

I am in the baking aisle, laughing as The Babyman stuffs a handful of his snack in his mouth. I fish a few out with my finger, admonishing him to take small bites. I look for a chocolate cake mix for my husband’s Father’s Day dessert request.

He is at my elbow suddenly, a small grin on his face. In his hands is a big bag of Hershey’s Miniatures. He hands them to me.

“For Mama,” he tells The Poo. “To celebrate Father’s Day.”

“My dad loved these,” I say, smiling.

“I know,” my husband replies. “That’s why I picked them out.”

I burst into unexpected tears, and he holds me close to his chest. “Sorry,” I say, embarrassed. “I didn’t expect that.” I wipe my face and we finish shopping.

***

“What are they doing today,” my husband asks.

“Planting flowers on my dad’s grave,” I say.

“Do you think they’re having dinner together?” he asks, sounding wistful.

“Yeah, I imagine so.” I reach for the high shelf, and shove a can of tomato puree behind a glass jar of peanuts. My husband puts the Hershey’s Miniatures in our Waterford biscuit barrel, a remnant of our wealthier days and a sort of inside joke. I look at the leaded crystal jar and see my father standing in front of my parents’ sofa table, picking out the plain Hershey’s Bars.

“I wish we were there,” I say.

***

I didn’t expect to miss him today. But I did.

Me and my father, 1976

She was fine when she woke up, but a few hours later there was a fever of 102 and vomiting in her pretty pink bed. Birthday parties and splashing in the pool will be missed, a summer’s day spent huddled under heavy covers in her bathrobe.

“Mama, Norah will be so frustrated!” she cries. “I have to go to her party! Oh, I don’t want to miss it!”

Her mouth turns down, the corners almost reaching her chin, which trembles. I know she has hundreds of summer days and birthday parties in her future, but she doesn’t—she lives entirely in the present, with only brief forays into the past and future. Remember when I fell at the library because I was running? Soon we will be at Cape Cod and I can collect seashells!

But mostly, she is rooted in the here and now.

Bed linens and sleeping pals tumble in the washing machine while she watches Scooby Doo in a double bed. The riotous flowers on the duvet cover mock her sleepy, sick countenance. I sit by her side, ready to hold her hair and rub her back. In my hands is a pink pillowcase I am stitching just for her.

Mommy, put my name on it. Will you please sew my name on it?

I will, just as she has stitched her name on my heart.

We were tired after a long day.

We were all out of the house by 9 a.m., and The Poo had two hours of soccer. The Babyman got to know his third babysitter in as many weeks. We went to the mall, the bookstore and out to dinner.

The Poo was in bed when the doorbell rang, and I heard her scamper to the top of the stairs as I headed toward the front hall from my perch in the guest room.

I cast her a sideways glance, and she put her hands under her chin. “Mommy,” she pleaded. “I just want to say hello.”

At the door was our Schwann’s man, with his truck full of frozen chicken patties and ice cream bars. I planned to send him away without making a purchase, but when I opened the front door, The Poo at my heels, the sweet summer air hit me—and hypnotized me.

Our neighbors put in a flower bed today, mulch as fresh and red as a wound. The sun was at that perfect angle when the whole world looks beautiful: McMansions, ghetto streets, trailer parks and middle-class suburban tract houses all rendered equal by the gentle blue gloom.

Impulsively, I asked our delivery man for ice cream bars. Chocolate covered with caramel, did he have them?

He chatted with The Poo, telling her to go back to bed and get her rest. Over her damp curls, he winked at me and mouthed, “sorry to wake her.” I smiled in return.

I sent the girl back to her bed and paid for my treats, when something caught my eye. A yellow spot to my left. One blink, then two. I looked hard, and was rewarded: a firefly.

I started to close the door, when I suddenly yelled up the stairs:

“Kiddo, come down here again! I want to show you something.”

“Coming,” she said.

I took her hand and led her to the porch, both of us in our pajamas. Sit here, I said. Watch carefully, I said. What do you see?

I see it! I see it, Mama!

We sat, holding hands and in our bare feet, counting the glowing spots and laughing with wonder.

The chores and the work and the have-tos and the must-haves melted away as I sat with my first-born, on a rough concrete porch, basking in the simple magic of her childhood.

Every month gets better and better, my Babyman. I love your face.

At a party recently I bemoaned the fact that my babysitter was leaving us, when I woman I barely know turned to me, a look of recollected horror on her face.

“I went into therapy after my favorite babysitter quit,” she said, eyebrows knitting together in consternation.

I gave her my patented “cocktail party/fellow parent” laugh, and started to leave the room.

“No, really,” she said. “I did. She did everything, I never had to worry. It was like having a third parent.” She looked off into the distance, and I could almost see her chaotic household, now at least 20 years in the past: three kids, a demanding job in a male-dominated field, a husband who also worked.

“I understand,” I replied. “You know, I really do.”

***

Bethany responded to my ad on Craigslist. She’d just graduated, she said, and didn’t have a job for the fall. She was moving home, could she set up a time to meet us when she got into town?

It was love at first sight.

Lively, intelligent and with pretty green eyes, Bethany and I clicked instantly. She took to The Poo, and, more importantly, The Poo fell in love with her, too. We sealed the deal with a handshake, after a tour of the house.

“Oh!” she said. “You have that bedding from Garnet Hill! That is my favorite, I love it.”

For almost a year, Bethany watched over The Poo while I started my freelance career. Three times a week, I went to the coffee shop while my daughter played and drew and laughed and learned with Bethany.

Bethany emptied my dishwasher one day, just because. The next, she folded a basket of laundry. It was just sitting there, she said, sheepishly, as I hugged her. She showed The Poo how to make a capital E and then they made alphabet letters out of glitter glue and Popsicle sticks.

I avoided asking her about her job search, praying fervently, guiltily, every night that she’d remain unemployed at least until I had a solid portfolio built up. One day, about four months into my pregnancy with The Babyman, she announced that she was moving to Chicago.

She didn’t have a job, she said. She just needed to go. It was time, she couldn’t stand living with her parents anymore. I looked at her, seeing myself at 23, longing to get out of the house and on with my life. I lived at home until the ripe old age of 25, something I never regret.

But I saw it in her, the restlessness. She had a plan, sketchy though it was. She was taking her pretty, emerald green eyes on the road to her future.

The Poo wept when we bid Bethany farewell.

So did I.

***

Our last sitter was capable, and she loved The Babyman. She came into his life when he was just five weeks old, fresh from a terrifying visit to the hospital and cranky from reflux and his lazy larynx.

Tina was angular where Bethany was curvy, with straight blonde hair and sexy librarian glasses. She was a snazzy dresser and she was never, ever late. She cuddled my son, and even took pictures of him on her cell phone, which she later printed out and glued to a hand-made Christmas card she gave us, along with some gifts for the kids.

She was The Babyman’s sitter; The Poo was at school when she came. I kissed my son’s soft spot as I walked out the door every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning for eight months. I never looked back, because I knew he was in caring, competent hands.

When I came home the high-chair train was spotless and the coffee mugs were in the dishwasher, my towels folded. Tina graduated in May, and set off for her own uncertain future, degree in hand and a job nowhere to be found.

She kissed my boy on the head and drove off into the prairie sunset, taking with her my sense of freedom.

***

Three sitters in less than two months. The first girl had family problems (mom with cancer, aunt who committed suicide) and an air of unpredictability that she managed to subvert during our interview. A negative review from The Poo (she yelled at me, she plays a little video game while I watch TV, Mama) helped usher her out the door.

The second girl, a wonderful personality. All whimsy and giggles, I find her, at age 31, dressed in my daughter’s tutu and scampering around the sofa in a game of “Princess and Fairy.” Later, the baby’s diaper gaps at the waist and food dries on the high-chair tray. I email her later: Playmobile toys are choking hazards, please only let the baby play with toys from his green bin.

Girl No. 3 is beautiful. Her eyes are perfectly spaced under eyebrows so impeccably groomed that I am suddenly concious of the juice on my T-shirt and the trace of a mustache over my upper lip. I cover my mouth as we chat about her experience as a middle-school Spanish teacher.

High school kids want to be entertained, she says. I think I like this age better.

She’s quiet, shy, almost. She talks about her family vacations to Arkansas, how she is always happy to see the flatlands of the middle west again. Her parents were missionaries in Holland, she says, and she would like to someday spend time on the European mainland.

Her mother ran a daycare center; she can change a diaper with one hand while sweeping the floor and feeding The Poo her lunch. She is not vivacious.

She is … servicable.

***

Some days, I think about Bethany and her quirky, cotton handbags. I wonder what her apartment in Chicago looks like, and if she ever comes back home to visit. I wonder if she ever thinks about The Poo.

And then I know, suddenly, why that woman I hardly know got that faraway look in her eye, when she thought about that one perfect babysitter, the one who got away.