Personality #1: "School will be good for her. By spending time away from me, she'll learn to be independent and resilient."
Personality #2: "Daycare is where she will learn that the world is cold, harsh place where Mama dumps her to go off and do something she deems more important than raising her."
Personality #1: "I am showing my daughter that I am strong woman who has her own needs and her own career goals. I will lead by example that women can be mothers without losing themselves."
Personality #2: "I am showing my daughter that I do not view motherhood as truly valuable 'work'."
Personality #1: "School will help build her immune system."
Personality #2: "Daycare will cause ten thousand plagues to descend upon our house."
Personality #1: "When I am away from my daughter, I can finally turn off the constant vigilance of motherhood, focus on myself and come back to her refreshed and ready to be present as a mother in a way that I cannot be without those breaks."
Personality #2: "When I am away from my daughter, I have that phantom limb feeling. Like something is missing. I look at the clock and wonder 'what's she doing?', 'is she okay?', and 'will I ever get over feeling guilty and actually ENJOY my time away from her?'."
Personality #1: "Kids I know who have been in school at her age seem more independent and assertive, qualities I want to instill in my daughter."
Personality #2: "Kids I know who have been in daycare at her age seem more aggressive and mouthy, obviously picking up bad behaviors from their peers."
Personality #1: "We are too enmeshed. She needs some space from me to grow up to be her own person. By letting others care for her, she will learn to trust others as well as herself."
Personality #2: "We have the close, constant, primary relationship that is vital for a child her age to have. At daycare, with too many teachers floating around the classroom, she will get lost in the shuffle and feel unmoored."
Personality #1: "I am telling my daughter that, though I love her very much, there are things that matter to me other than mothering."
Personality #2: "I am telling my daughter that, though I love her very much, there are things that matter to me other than mothering."
3 comments:
You have written the emotions of mothers everywhere -- whether their children are ages 1, 2 or 4!
Hey this is grammalouie here and I want to add that you have written the emotions of mothers everywhere, even if their children are completely independent adults living three thousand miles away! HA!
Girl, when I first started reading this, something in it made me say, "This is so Vassar," and then I realized I meant, "This is so US," -feeling things so deeply AND being able to/needing to articulate and analyze them. This is what we DO, folks like you and me. So, the point is... what is the point... I love you, it is painful, this is good stuff you are struggling with... and you have no choice whether or not you are a whack-job feeler/thinker/over-analyzer, so just keep being your smart, articulate, thoughtful, goddess-like self.
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