Solo Mother

mother guilt episode 288732551: sick kid, business trip, what to do?

by christina on March 3rd, 2007

The KoE has been a trooper. Went to my aunt’s memorial service and sat through the whole thing, quiet as a mouse, coloring and listening to all the nice things folks had to say about his favorite grand aunt. But by the time we got back into the car to come home, he was flagging, and when he woke up from an uncharacteristic nap during the drive back, he started to cry, pushing his fingers into his mouth and croaking that his mouth hurt.

The boy is sick. It’s the first time since he was a toddler that he’s had a sore throat, and the pain of it has taken him by surprise. We stopped at a pharmacy and loaded up on sore throat spray and honey lozenges, camphor rub and eucalyptus to add to his vaporizer. I made him leek and potato and carrot soup and wrapped him in a pashmina. We snuggled and read Without Wings, Mother, How Can I Fly?, a beautiful book about a boy’s imagination and a mother’s love. His eyes were glassy, his skin pale. He asked for an extra blanket and snuggled against me, right where he belongs. His breathing hitched and caught, ragged, loud, laborious. The light of my life is burning bright with fever and cold tonight, and I’m leaving him tomorrow for a business trip. I’m tearing myself apart, quietly, with all the things I should do, can do won’t do, all the obligations, impositions and perceptions that swirl in my head.

I don’t think I can change my tickets. I’m going to double check. I need that three hours on the train tomorrow to catch up with work, and could probably use all that time alone in NYC to get ahead, finally, and also enjoy meeting up with a friend or two. Now here comes the guilt. I’m leaving my child when he needs me. He’s a brave boy, but who doesn’t need their mama when they’re sick? So I swing towards rescheduling the trip. But then my pendulum swings the other way and wonders what folks at the office will think if I can’t fulfill my work obligations because of my child? I don’t want to be pigeon-holed as one of those mommy track women, or give single mothers a bad rep by being ‘unreliable’. So I swing back towards going through with the trip. But then I think of my parents, who will be taking care of a sick three year old (three and eleven-twelfths, mama, I can hear him correcting me) for two days, and possibly catching his cold, as well.

It’s what we do every day, as adults: weigh the difficult choices and try to make an educated guess. What did I do?

I called my mom. They will tuck him in on the sofa tomorrow with juice and pillows, turn on Sesame Street and snuggle him. I hope they’ll also wash their hands like crazy and take Emergen-C and generally guard their own health. I will go, work and have dinner with a friend whose voice I very much want to hear singing, and run the business development meetings on Monday. I will sneak back to my house on Monday night and snuggle my sleeping boy.

Tonight, I’ll probably end up sleeping on the King of Everything’s floor, listening to every congested breath, and wishing I could take the discomfort away. The ultimate mother’s guilt: I can’t spare him everything in this life. Nor should I. But oh, I wish he wasn’t sick. And I wish I didn’t have to go.

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POSTED IN: career, childcare, health