This Little Mommy Stayed Home by Samantha Wilde

Author:Samantha Wilde [Wilde, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-553-90667-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

I ruminated while I drove to Susan the caterer’s house (I certainly wasn’t doing the cooking for twenty-five people), and checked on Zach in the rearview mirror every ten seconds, a habit I’d developed when he was newborn that I still couldn’t shake. (Thanks in no small part to a genius invention supporting paranoid mothers everywhere: a special mirror that attaches to the back seat and allows you to watch the baby through the rearview mirror.) I was checking, of course, to see if he was still alive—like maybe the seat belt had come to life and wrapped itself around his neck or he’d managed to smother himself by turning his head sideways against the car seat. If you’ve never had children and someone told you about this helpless, neurotic tick (checking on him constantly), you would not understand. But this is the thing no one can prepare you for. This is the thing other mothers and fathers won’t tell you when you’re thinking about having a baby, when you’re pregnant, when you’re heading into labor. I’m going to tell you, because I’m that kind of person. I’ll consider it my civic duty. My small contribution to world peace. You will never be free again. There, I said it. Sure, one day, say twenty years hence, you’ll sleep through the night and you’ll probably have an hour or two to yourself. You’ll eat when you want, and you’ll be able to take showers. But from the moment that baby, that person, emerges in a mess of blood and goo, your heart lives in another body. You will long to escape; you will long for free time, but even when you get it, you will feel strange, like a person with a missing limb, you will wonder what is missing, and then you will remember that you are not just you anymore. Your heart is not your own. Some little person carries it with them everywhere. This is wonderful if you’re, say, supremely sentimental, but if you’re not, it’s a bit of hell.

I’m not being dramatic. I don’t think I am at least. Maybe other people have their opinions. I’m being realistic. The other night I sat up reading and rereading an article about a toddler who’d been killed in a head-on collision. (I don’t make a habit of reading the newspaper. It’s not news they print, it’s bad news. Why don’t they have any articles like this: “Grandmother Enjoys Her 1,009,678th Chocolate Bar,” “Businessman Gives Away All His Money and Moves in with the Monks,” “Life Is Fun, Here’s Why”?) The younger baby survived the accident. I could not put the paper down. I could not stop thinking about the mother of that dead toddler. Then, when Drew finally turned the light out, I lay awake for the longest time thinking about what I would do if something happened to Zach. Of course, I would have to go insane or jump off a bridge. Then I decided I would keep him safe by never letting him leave the house.

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