Friday, July 28, 2006
(8:03 AM) | Tara Smith:
Friday Afternoon Confessional: Mommy Style
I confess that I think I'm getting dumber. I'd like to say that this perception is due to a Socratic awareness of how much I still don't know, or because I have continually surrounded myself with brilliant people thereby decreasing my perception of my own relative intelligence, but really I think I'm just getting dumber. Dummer, even. (My husband, standing over my shoulder, asks me to confess for him that he thinks I'm getting dumber as well. I confess that I'm going to kill him in his sleep.)I confess that I like putting my son in daycare. I don't even feel very guilty about it very often anymore, even though I try to because I think a good mom should feel vaguely guilty about everything. I know that by placing him in someone else's care throughout the day, I'm certainly creating in him an inability to bond with others that will manifest itself in broken relationships throughout the rest of his life, and I know that I'm clearly choosing the lesser path of self-indulgence rather than embracing the essence of motherhood, which can be characterized by a propensity for exhaustion, self-loathing, and a vague but unsatisfying sense of martyrdom, but man it's nice to spend eight hours of the day with adults.
I confess that I'm ridiculously pleased that I get to attend District Assembly and listen to pastors' reports all day because I know that no one cares if I take my book (Heidegger: What is Called Thinking? It's a re-read, but it's been a long time and I didn't read it well enough the first time) and do nothing but read and write all day. I could do that all day anyway once in awhile without anyone caring, but this way even I don't have to feel like there's something more pressing I ought to do.
I confess that my son is babbling my name right now for no real reason, and that makes me almost unbearably happy.
What do you confess?
