She Was Pushing The Stroller And Crying
This morning I brought Jane to the doctor, she has a sore throat. As we were waiting for the doctor to come in the room, I was on the telephone with another mom who is an independent contractor. She was saying how she felt like a bad mom when her kids get sick and she can’t take the day off. Well, it’s just a feeling. Since when do we cater to feelings?
The really bad moms seldom doubt their actions.
My friends and I, on the other hand, are swimming in self doubt. That’s why we connect online and in person to share struggles and strategies, we educate ourselves, we keep up on the latest research and we take that mixture of academia and practical experience, twirl it around and the result is homespun wisdom. Though mothering can be challenging, most often it’s wonderful, and though it can be isolating, we still have that isolation in common.
As I was leaving the pediatrician with my daughter a mother was walking in. She was pushing her stroller, and crying. The baby was in the infant seat, a pink blanket draped over the whole thing, so I couldn’t see. Did her daughter have a birth defect? Was she terribly ill? Well, she couldn’t be terribly acutely ill or they’d be in the hospital, right? Maybe the baby was up crying all night, and now Mom was going to cry all day? I’ve certainly lived through that scenario.Maybe her baby needed surgery. Handing your child to the anesthesiologist will shave a few years off your life.
What makes a thirty something year old woman walk down public hallways crying?
Motherhood.
Really, we do our best to do this well. Most often we’re pretty darn good at it, and other days we walk around crying in public.