One of the hardest things about being a parent, about being a female, and about find one's place in a new society is learning how to say that scary little two-letter word. You know the one. Starts with "n" and ends in "owe." I think I've figured out why.
Let's start with the "mom" part. I have guilt. Guilt for moving him here, guilt for leaving him there last year, guilt because he's an awful lot like my and god help him that's not going to be easy, and guilt because, well, it's what I do. I know some moms without the guilt. Okay, I think I know some moms without some guilt--if they have it (and yeah, they probably do), they've managed to make it less visible to the outside world. Problem being, of course, that the guilt isn't doing anyone any favors, it just impels me to do more than I'm really capable of doing--if I'd been able to say the "n" word, we probably wouldn't be at this impasse.
And then there's the whole female thing. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that guilt is a largely feminized space; that women are more likely to harbor this vague-ish and somewhat nameless guilt that floats somewhere around our midsections. Seriously. It's why we apologize so much, even when we haven't done anything apology-worthy. I have, embarassingly enough, been known to reflexively apologize to chairs that were in my way. I haven't known many chairs to take offense, and even when they do they tend to be pretty quiet about it.
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