I heard a little girl tell her mother, “I’ve never once heard you complain about being a mom.” How odd that she noticed the absence of complaint and remarked on it. How fortunate to have a mother who does not complain. The same cannot be said for a growing number of children whose mothers are public and verbose with their commitment to regret.
“I love my children and would do anything for them,” they frequently insist. Anything except be even minorly inconvenienced to allow for their existence, that is.
There are now strange, quasi-religious, readings that take place on the internet. Parents anonymously share their darkest thoughts about how they regret ever having children and how those children have made their lives a living hell. Granted, without proper lifestyle management and hygiene, they are probably not wrong. These screeds are then read aloud for the camera to an audience of the enlightened childless elect.
These readings are usually conducted in somber tones. Nothing in the seriously depressed person’s narrative is questioned and there is never humor allowed. That last is a real missed opportunity. Take, for example, a story of regret in which a mother, overwhelmed by the responsibilities of taking care of a baby, stuck inside her house in a strange city with no friends, vents her wrath on her husband. After she had been unexpectedly fired from her position which she had assurances she could keep after the baby, she feels even more trapped.
In this trying situation, it is her husband who becomes the villain. That jerk who wanted kids but refuses to take equal responsibility for the crying baby. When her husband refused to go in late to work when she asked him to help her watch the baby, he quipped, “At least one of us needs a job, so I can’t lose mine.” This was read with a tone of great seriousness.
But it’s meant to be funny! If you allow yourself a little chuckle at his gallows humor while his wife unravels in isolation and he falters under the crushing weight of a lifestyle budgeted for two incomes, the death grip of despair starts to give way. What exactly was this man supposed to know about caring for a newborn?
We’d do some “regretful mothers” a great favor by not taking them so seriously. Once you can crack a smile, your perspective can widen; someone else’s view might start to come into focus.
