mama's lament

I feel sorry for moms who only have one or two children.

Because then, if her daughter calls, in tears, because her husband's car was stolen and she's sick with the pregancy and all, and being married is hard, then what would she do? She'd give too much attention to that poor girl if she didn't have another one to worry about. Say, a six-year-old, maybe, who ate so much candy that the dentist had to basically give him a root canal and a bright, shiny crown which promptly fell off when he chewed that free sample of sugar-free gum the dentist so kindly provided.

If that mom with few kids obsessed about that little boy, she wouldn't have the time or energy to be concerned about her teenage son who headed the ball at soccer and can't really move his neck. You remember him, he's the same one who is coming down with a cold and has a severe back ache as well. Never mind that he didn't study for that Spanish test tomorrow. He's staying home from school. No time to worry...

No time, because there's always the son who ended up at urgent care tonight for a "blunt force contusion to the knee" that occurred while he was helping his dad. If I was a mom with only one or two children, I might hover over him and make him endlessly dependent on me and unsuitable as a husband in the future. No worries, though!

No worries because as he was off to the ER I was chatting with another newlywed daughter, one who feels she is a failure for one poor grade on one test. She feels mediocre. She is addled with the same challenges her mother has faced her whole life. Poor thing. Good her mom can't obsess over her troubles, either.

Yes, I feel sorry for those moms with one or two kids. Although I realize that one child is enough to make a mother....a mother for life who never stops worrying, loving or praying.