Thoreau's mom did do his laundry, but it's not what you think

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We’ve arrived at the second Sunday in May – Mother’s Day — a day celebrated by some and fraught for others. Every year Cog is flooded with submissions pegged to this (Hallmark) holiday and we labor over our decisions about which essays to publish. (This year we have three — all excellent, all different.)

“Moms” are a frequent essay topic, whether people are writing about their own moms, or being a mom, or thinking about motherhood in general. And it’s no wonder: What a mom does or doesn’t do, her presence or absence — even the expectation of what a “mother” is — looms large.

I’ve written a fair bit on this too. It’s hard not to, especially since “mom-ing” gobbles up so many of my waking hours.

This week, for example, I accompanied my 7-year-old on a class field trip to Walden Pond. It’s not often I raise my hand to be a parent chaperone, but my older kids are finishing elementary school in June and I have the sense it’s now or never.

Fortunately for me, Walden Pond has long been one of my favorite places on the planet. On early mornings from early June until late October, you may find me slowly making my way across the pond, alternating between a splashy front crawl and a lazy breaststroke; in colder months, I try to plunge there once a week. To me, there is almost nothing more peaceful than floating on my back, just beyond earshot of the din from shore.

No surprise, then, that my kid’s school trip sent me back to Thoreau’s work. But not to “Walden” or “Civil Disobedience” (thank you AP English). Instead, I revisited “Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau” by Ben Shattuck. The nonfiction book is a meditation/memoir, of sorts, on walking, nature and history. The back cover reads: “With little more than a loaf of bread, brick of cheese and a notebook, Shattuck sets out to retrace Thoreau’s path…” (I never noticed how romantic the phrase “brick of cheese” could be before – silly me.)

Shattuck, who’s married to actress Jenny Slate and co-owns the nation’s oldest general store, gave a book talk a few years ago at the Concord Museum that I happened to attend. During the event, he dutifully answered questions from the moderator about his own experience as a Civil War reenactor and what captivates him about Thoreau’s writing. But the question I cannot shake is one an audience member posed: Is it really true that Thoreau’s mom did his laundry? That’s the rub on Thoreau, right? Living alone in the woods – transcending – is a whole lot easier when Mom washes your clothes. If you sense a hint of “Thoreau-couldn’t-have-done-it-without-his-mom” side-eye from me, you’re not wrong.

I can’t remember exactly how Shattuck answered the question. But I posed it to a Walden staff member, Ranger Jacqui, on the field trip last week. Her answer surprised me.

She said that, yes, in fact, the rumor is true: Thoreau’s mom, Cynthia, did his laundry. Then she reminded me that very few men, if any, in the 19th century did their own laundry, and more importantly, tossing his stuff into the family’s pile was a way for Thoreau’s mom to keep tabs on him. Just three years before Thoreau embarked on his experiment in living simply, his older brother, John, died at the age of 27 from tetanus after cutting himself shaving. Ranger Jacqui explained that Cynthia was grieving her older son, and wanted to keep her younger son close. (Please note: she died at 84, outliving three of her four children.)

This additional context diminished the shade I’ve been tempted to throw at Thoreau’s experience. With “moms” writ large already on my  brain, it made me think about the little things mothers do, or are expected to do, and how those things change (or stay the same) over time.

I recalled the huffing and puffing required to stuff my kids’ (once) chubby feet into soccer cleats, and all the hours I’ve logged folding laundry and cleaning up their messes. As the mother of young children, I am in the trenches of a version of motherhood that is still physically demanding. I sometimes feel ambivalent, resentful even, about the endless demands on my time. But I’ve been in this role long enough to have some sense of how quickly kids grow; I see the faint glimmer of a day when I may even possibly crave some of the tasks that feel brutally tiresome right now. The laundry and soccer cleats and bedtime battles are moments of connection — literal minutes and hours — that become less frequent as kids mature. It’s bittersweet, this parenting business.

Our contributors’ experiences also tell me this is true. I think about Kathy Gunst holding her grandchild in the wee hours and packing her daughter’s freezer full of potato leek soup and brisket. Or Nicola Kraus finding peace, by letting go. Or Ethan Gilsdorf reconnecting with his mom, by reading her favorite cookbook. It’s simple, fundamental stuff.

I don’t have any fancy ideas about today: some exercise, time to read, maybe an extra-spicy Bloody Mary if I play my cards right. Whether you’re celebrating a mom, or missing one, or are a mother or mother-figure yourself, I hope you get what you need, whatever that may be.

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