Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The Secret Lives of Moms


Well, maybe it's not so secret, but just a little oblivious to me.
Today was my first sneak peek in becoming one of "the pack"-- that is, the stay-at-home moms ("stay" used loosely). I went for the first time to a Play Date, a weekly meeting of the ladies and their youngsters from my church at a local park. I had never gone before because it's morning mid-week, when I would normally be working were it not for my glorious maternity leave. To make a short story long and highly introspective, my pregnancy experience has basically been trying to make sense of the world through the eyes of a mother, which has been a joyful and terrifying journey. One of the moms at the park today asked me to watch her two little ones for a few minutes while she went off to another part of the park to take some photographs. "Sure," I obliged casually, while a flash of terror flitted somewhere deep within to produce the following Gollum-like monologue:

"Sarah, you are now the responsible adult for the safety and well-being of these two precious children. Do not let them out of your sight!"

"Now just calm down. There are a half dozen set of moms' eyes in the immediate area to keep watch for all the kids."

"But YOU'RE still the one responsible."

"I'm sure nothing will happen..."

"But are you sure you're ready to handle this responsibility when it's your OWN kid? 24/7?"

"Um..."

"Well, that wasn't a very encouraging response, but there's no backing out now."

"Tell me about it, I'm as big as a house (well, a sensible apartment, anyway). How do these moms do it, anyway?"

"Beats me. But they always seem to have snacks handy. That's probably a big part of it."

"I like snacks. I can do snacks."

"That's the spirit. Now where are those kids..."

This sort of monologue has been continuing throughout the whole of my pregnancy, though in varying degrees of neurosis. I suppose all first-time moms go through this to one degree or another, so I should probably feel like this is all normal. After all, having children is the most natural thing in the world, right? So why is it that this has such an effect on half of the entire human population throughout all of history? Maybe it has something to do with the helplessness of babies? Maybe it has something to do with the sanctity of human life? Maybe it has something to do with the spiritual ramifications of parenting? Maybe it's something else, but one thing I do know, for as long as we're having babies, Quaker, Nabisco, Kraft and Dannon are always going to stay in business.