Sour

I’m riding in the back of an ambulance with my eight-month-old. We’ve had a car accident. Max bumped his head on his car seat and the cop at the scene told me we could go right to the ER to have him checked, and of course I said yes. Max is crying, but not because of injury. He hates the strap they have tied around his head, around his body, to keep him still, When we get to the ER,  I run in with Max before the cops. Two doctors swarm around me, but instead of being sympathetic, they snap. “Is this the first time he’s had an injury?”  And then: “What did you do?”

 

“We had a car crash,” I say, but the doctors whisk Max from my hands and start examining him, shining lights in his eyes, testing his reflexes, and when they look at me, it is with disdain.  It isn’t until one of the cops saunters in and confirms the accident, that things change. One of the doctors comes over and gives Max back to me, settling him in my arms. “He’s fine,” she says, smiling, and I hold him tight and all I can think is both how glad I am they look out for babies, and how dare you, how dare you.

Caroline, Hoboken, NJ, writer, http://www.carolineleavitt.com

Sour

I just can’t get used to the shock of motherhood, the shock of having no sleep, most days no shower, a constant torrent of housework, and the feeling of overly caffeinated exhaustion day in and out. I feel at the end of every day that I’ve run a marathon.

Did our mothers feel this way, too?

I think our generation feels, in a way that our mothers’ did not, that we need to do everything a bit too perfectly so that our children don’t wind up addicted to video games, junk food, Prozac and ADD meds. We read all the books, buy all the latest gear to help bond with our baby, get the toy that will help promote social empathy and gross motor skills, avoid BPA, take DHA, but not the kind that might have mercury in it, and basically do everything within our power to ensure that they don’t grow up like we did: with Tang and fruit-roll-ups in the pantry, parents divorcing loudly in the bedroom at night after we’d gone to bed, and more time with the TV than anyone else.

But really, was it so bad for us? What are we running around like mad for, really? What are we trying to inoculate our children against?

I suppose, if I’m truly honest with myself, it is this – a most frightening prospect: I’m trying to prevent my child from feeling the way about me as I do about my parents.

- Cleo, New York, NY, stay-at-home mom

Sour

I’m amazed at the extremes I feel. Some days I feel like a fucking zombie, incapable of understanding how I’ll ever get my life back, how I’ll ever be able to read the newspaper leisurely with a hot cup of tea, how I’ll ever find time to soothe my soul with yoga or meditation or just curling up to a good book. Is that life over? I ask myself sometimes, terrified at discovering the answer. Should I mourn it and just move on? If so, it seems unfair, like I didn’t really know enough about it before having children. I didn’t know. I didn’t enjoy those lingering conversations at the dinner table with my husband, pouring that extra glass of wine just for fun. I didn’t savor the car ride alone, turning up the music and opening the sunroof. I squandered all the long showers, the cooking experiments, the window shopping, the ability to use my body for any kind of exercise I pleased. I wasted all the time going to the bathroom without worrying he was crying in the other room. I wasted the chance to really understand how much I lived for myself and no one else, and how unfuckingbelievably pleasurable that was – no shame in that. It was just lovely.

- Alexis, Madrid, Spain, teacher/writer