I thought my youngest son (almost three) had outgrown
wearing his food, but he proved me wrong.  With tomato
sauce saturating his hair and staining his grinning
face a deep orange he announced that he was all done.

He couldn’t have read my mind more accurately if he
had tried.

So I scolded Mr. All Done and gave him his milk before
I excused him from the table.  After all, a mother has
to make sure her child eats three square meals a day
no matter how much he likes to style his hair with it.
It doesn’t have to make sense.  It’s just the way
moms think.  If I send my child from the table without
his milk no matter how he’s behaved, his teeth may rot
and fall out and his bones won’t grow and he’ll be
stunted for life and this could lead to problems in
relationships and he might be scarred forever.

So I gave him a cup of milk.  He promptly put both
hands in it, spilling it everywhere.

This is the thanks I get for looking out for his
mental welfare.  I save him from a life of emotional
scarring and he has me rushing to sop up the milk
before it ruins the rug.

So, I take him to the bathroom to wash him, whereupon
he screams.  Now, at no point during his ‘meal’ did he
experience aversion to the layers of food he applied
to his body, but somehow soap and water are like acid
on his face and hands.

Now I have a dripping child running from one family
member to the other milking the moment for all the
sympathy he can get.

Just whose mental health SHOULD I be concerned about
here?  What about me?  I carried this child for nine
months and gave birth to him.  I feed him all the good
things he needs to grow and be smart and healthy, I
keep him clean and mentally stimulated and now I’m the
bad guy?

So I consulted my stash of chocolate.  If I had read
the Mother’s Manual BEFORE I was ever pregnant, I
might have decided that marriage and children were not
for me.  Why on earth would I volunteer for a vocation
where I get little affirmation and validation from the
little masters I serve?

Doctors, nurses and teachers get more thanks than I
do.

By now, the little twerp is pacified and decides to
approach me.  I brace myself.  What is he going to try
to negotiate now?  Uh-oh.  He saw the chocolate.

“Momma, have chocolate please?”

“No.  You made a mess of your lunch.  No chocolate.”
He runs off in tears and I am absolutely certain this
will cost him $75 an hour when he’s a young adult.
Well, good for him.  I may as well make it worth his
time.  I’ll write some more columns about him and make
sure I cover those delicate emotional stages of
puberty with great detail.  

Mother’s guilt.  That which doesn’t kill us makes us
eat chocolate.