Every once in awhile, I like to look through the family album
and reminisce about all the times I felt that I had hit rock
bottom.
You see, I recently came across a photo of my son when he was
five years old at the school picnic, without his teddy bear.
Every once in awhile, I like to look through the family album and reminisce about all the times I felt that I had hit rock bottom.
You see, I recently came across a photo of my son when he was five years old at the school picnic, without his teddy bear.
Now, of course, this may not seem like such a bad problem to you, and looking back on it, I probably could have been worrying about anything else. However, that particular day was the annual teddy bear picnic, which means, as you’ve probably figured out, it was the day that every kindergartner gets to bring their favorite teddy bear to school.
Oh, I know what you are thinking. You’ve gone from thinking, “big deal,” to “only the worst kind of parent could leave their child bearless.” And, believe me, you are absolutely right. But, before you start writing letters and calling the authorities, I want you to know that the minute I realized my mistake I threw myself at my son’s feet and begged for forgiveness.
“Mom, it’s OK,” he shrugged. “Stop crying. There were extras.”
But let’s face it, even though everyone was nice about it, any request for a child to bring something to school is really the teacher’s way of seeing exactly what kind of parent you are.
And so for the rest of the year, I was branded as the kind of irresponsible mother who did nothing but lay around the house in pajamas watching daytime talk shows.
But I digress.
I don’t need an old photo of my son to make me feel like a bad parent. I could just look at another photo of my kids reading. That reminds me of one of the last times I took them to the library.
Everything was going great until we got to the checkout desk and I couldn’t find my card. This meant that my information had to be looked up in the computer. So they punched in our phone number and brought up my entire borrowing history.
First of all, it listed all of the times I requested a new card. Then it said I lost a magazine. On top of that, it showed I owed fines for a book that I had checked out sometime in 1993.
Naturally I didn’t remember any of it, but something told me that the librarian wasn’t going to trust a person like me with any more books until I paid up. So I wrote a check.
But then they needed to see my ID, which, as luck would have it, was somewhere at home – possibly marking my place in the missing book.
In less than five minutes I went from suburban mother of two, with an A+ credit rating, to an irresponsible menace to society. I mean, if this type of thing can happen in America, then no one is safe.
The important thing here is that, no matter how bad I look to everyone else, my family has always forgiven me. Time and time again. Which suddenly makes looking through the photo album rather enjoyable.
Meanwhile, I’m reassured that I know one day my life will slow down, and I’ll turn my reputation around.
But until then I’m stocking my trunk with extra pencils, glue sticks, library cards, copies of permission slips, and, oh yeah, a stuffed bear or two. Just in case.
