It has been challenging being a new mom. There was so much I didn’t know, so much I don’t know still and so many more things I will discover by the process of trial and error. It scares me to death, yet at the same time it delights me to see my son growing every day, changing, becoming his own personality….he’s amazing.
I’m so glad I got to spend every day of his first 12 weeks of life…but should that be enough? The answer is clearly no. Any mother who has had to drop her child off at day care and then turn around and walk away knows the kind of pain I felt this week.
Many moms have told me that I will get used to it, that it will hurt less and less as time goes by. When I think about it, that’s the magic or in this case the indifference of time. That the passing of time could make me get ‘used to’ leaving my child with strangers is incredible to me. Should I get ‘used to’ such a thing? I think not. Time is the enemy.
I don’t have enough of it with my son. But even having to come to work wouldn’t be so hard if I knew he was home with a family member looking after him. Anyone can care for an infant, even day care centers. But receiving care vs. love are two very different things.
Care is what is given at a hospital or an animal shelter. Love is what you get from home and heart. It is most unnatural to leave my infant son to go back to work. The added worry of whether he will get enough love during the day kills me. Children don’t grow by receiving care. They grow by receiving love.
It wrecks my heart to no end….”is he being loved at day care?” the answer is inevitably a resounding “NO”. There is a reason why humans don’t have a litter of babies like in the animal kingdom. The human baby needs one on one interaction/bonding/love.
“It will get better….” Bullshit. Maybe for them it did, but I don’t have to think even for a mili-second whether it will get better for me. It will not get better. I am not a day care mom. I am a mother to my son.
1 comment:
hey there--
EJ's cousin here. i totally agree with you that babies need their moms, esp. when they are so little. i had to go back to work after 8 weeks maternity leave, and it was so hard, even though i was leaving my daughter with my husband. and i wish i could say it gets easier, but just the other day, i almost broke down when i realized that cadence sometimes goes TWENTY hours without seeing me because i leave before she wakes up in the morning. i wish we had 1 year paid leave for parents like in scandanavia or canada.
anyhoo, jack is adorable, and i know that the time you DO spend with him will be all that much more meaningful, and he's lucky to have a mom who realizes the importance of bonding with her child.
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