Seems that today is filled with 'guilt' for me. I use the quotation marks as an indication that on an intellectual basis I know that I don't really have anything to feel 'guilty' about, but I cannot help but feel incredibly guilty today.
Any parent will tell you about 'parent guilt' - the guilt that comes with putting work first for example, and missing that school assembly where your child unexpectedly (or God forbid expectedly) receives an award. Weighing up the pros and cons and deciding whether you can forgo that meeting so that you child feels like you actually care about their achievement. Weighing up whether getting to work a couple of hours late is worth ensuring that your child looks out into the assembly crowd and sees your smiling face.
Or the guilt that comes with putting off that kick-to-kick of the footy in the backyard because the toilet needs cleaning, the washing needs folding, there are bills to pay.
My main 'Mother Guilt' comes from the fact that I send my Cherub to school often at times where he could probably stay at home due to being sick. Some might say that this is not a bad thing, but usually when I make this decision, I do feel kind of mean that I've put my own needs of working (read: getting a break from the house and getting some adult conversation) over the fact that Cherub needs a rest. Particularly since Cherub has to be on the school bus at 7:30 in the morning, where he sits for an hour and a half before getting to school, and then has to do the same thing on the way home. I do spend those days worrying about how he is going, did I make the right decision, and will this come back to bite me on the backside later in the week when he gets sicker and simply cannot go to school?
Which is when my other 'guilt' comes in - 'Work Guilt'. Am I letting my work colleagues down by not being at work? Could my Cherub actually make it just one more day, so that I can commit that one more day to work? Am I being over-reactive? Perhaps? Perhaps not?
I make these decisions all the time (so it seems), and this week is one of them. Cherub has been throwing up each night since Saturday, coughing until he spews (sorry, but that's the easiest way to describe it). I've seen this before - last year in fact, when he was diagnosed with Whooping Cough.
Yesterday we headed off to the doctor's to discuss this issue, where I was routinely told that 'No, you can't get it again. It's not impossible, but it's highly improbable'.
'But can it lay dormant?', I asked, 'Not go completely away because I'm telling you Doc, this is exactly what I saw last year.' I note here the following: Cherub was immunised against Whooping Cough as a baby, and still got it last year. Cherub was immunised against Meningicoccal as a baby, and still got it in '07. Instinct is telling me that maybe my child might just have whooping cough again, based on his 'immunity' history, but still, I'm not the doctor.
A quick pat on the shoulder (metaphorically speaking) and a 'There there' and we were out the door, with no testing done and me shouldering the mother guilt of not pushing things further. Because, quite frankly, my instincts are telling me that this is not just a 'croupy virusy thing' like I was told it was.
But, having been told that this simply couldn't be whooping cough again, I decided that no matter what happened last night, Cherub would be off to school, because the 'work guilt' was already starting to settle in - I'd kept him home for what I was basically told was 'no good reason'.
Of course, last night, as Cherub settled down for bed, it all happened again. And so my mother guilt and my work guilt went into overdrive. Mother Guilt showed herself by chastising me for not pushing the point further at the Docs, however she did give me the impetus to video what was happening so that next time (and I'm sure there will be one, either tomorrow or the next day), I can show them what is happening.
Work guilt, however, came up trumps, and I said to myself 'No, this will be OK, he can go to school tomorrow, you need to get back to work, you cannot let the team down'.
Until the second time he had a go, when Mother guilt tapped me on the shoulder and said "You're kidding, aren't you? You'd send Cherub to school after this effort just so that you can save face at work and not look like you're letting the team down? Gimme a break"
At about two o'clock this morning, Work Guilt woke me up and said 'He'll be fine, just send him along', coincidentally at this time Cherub was having one of two successive (non chucky) coughing fits in bed. Work Guilt forced me to just wait it out and not go running in to Cherubs room to check....if he didn't throw up, he would be fine for school. He didn't throw up, nor did he throw up the next time, but the coughing fits lasted for nearly 45 minutes each, so Mother Guilt showed her face again and said "You can't send him to school tomorrow, he's just exhausted, and besides, look at yourself now, you've had two nights of shocking sleep and quite frankly, I doubt that you'll be able to string two words together tomorrow".
And so, Work Guilt, Mother Guilt, and Self-Preservation were now in a standoff, similar to the ending of the movie 'Reservoir Dogs'.
Mother Guilt has won, Cherub is home again today, but Work Guilt is shaking his head quietly in the corner. Self preservation knows that she doesn't stand a chance either way - it was a choice of exhaustion here at home, or exhaustion at work....but I get through that sort of thing all the time, like most parents (especially single ones), so poor old Self Preservation never really gets a look in anyway!
See you on the other side
Janeane
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