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Mother Guilt, 2004-09-13, 12:55 p.m.


Apparently the concert was amazing. Absolutely amazing. Even after only a few hours sleep, D. was still in a dreamy mood about it. He brought me home a beautiful t-shirt, which we didn't think would fit (it was a girls large, not a general t-shirt large) but does. His pictures look beautiful.

I wish I had gone. But I'm glad I didn't come home to a crying baby, or a baby who'd cried all night until he slept because he was hungry. Or needed me. The guilt would have overridden the wonderfulness of the night. Knowing I was needed and not there would have been horrid.

See... P. doesn't take bottles. Or really, he hasn't been given a bottle. Or formula. I'm home, I can breastfeed, I choose to breastfeed. Others choose to pump or use formula - I've chosen not to. I chose not to start solids yet, due to what I've read about solids and digestion (however, after our weekend away, we will be starting them, when he's almost five months). I don't use a pacifier, sometimes he co-sleeps, he gets loads of hugs and sung to when he needs it. I've created his dependance on me and in many ways, I love it.

It means however, I miss out on many things. Like the concert. Like eating things that I like. Like being able to take overnights and leave him with my parents. It means that when we go to reel babies (this week is vanity fair, a movie I just can't miss) I get my boob out while others go to the microwave to heat their bottles.

But why guilt from this? If it is of my own making, then why guilt? It's not because I feel any of this makes me a better mother than anyone else - these are choices, not badges. It's not even because I feel that these choices are why P. is how he is - bright, vocal and beautiful. I do think that they're part of his support system - a support system for him, of our family design. I guess it's because I'm needed. Right now, in his support system, he's at the stage where he needs me physically - as opposed to later in life where he needs me to step back physically but be there just as much or more emotionally.

He needs me physically to provide hugs and food for him and to sing to him when he is sleepy but teething keeps him from sleeping. And if I can't provide that now, I guess I worry, how can I provide what he needs later.

Concerts will come and go. Sarah Harmer may just return next year or the year after. Or Ben Folds might be somewhere we can get to. Or we might want to go out to dinner and a movie, not just one or the other. These things will come and I will have people (such as my parents whose parenting style I am following in many ways) to give the extended support I and he needs. Until then, I'll miss concerts and wonder what it would have been like to have cuddled into my husband as she closed with 'Open Window', miss eating salsa and spaghetti sauce and want a cosmopolitan on a night out. But then, I'll look at my baby and not regret a thing.


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