We’ve all heard stories of mothers doing crazy things to protect their children, and while I’ve never had to lift a car off of anybody – knock on wood – I will say that I have that same boundless and (at times) catty drive to protect my young, though they aren’t so young anymore.
This is typically how it works…
Someone says my kids aren’t perfect, I say who is?
Someone says they don’t always use the best language, I say they learned it from their fucking father.
Someone says they shouldn’t be climbing the neighbour’s fence to take a short cut to the bus, I say, Jesus Christ, again? I’ll talk to them.
All kidding aside, it doesn’t matter their age, a mother is a mother forever, and my claws WILL come out if someone criticizes, questions, or otherwise bad-mouths any one of them. I count this as a good thing. It’s my job. If I don’t stick up for them – right or wrong – who’s going to?
I think it just goes to show that we have bonded, that the body-altering nature of their time inside my womb, and the subsequent excruciating pain of their individual evacuations – my daughter’s being by far the most bloody and brutal – and the many, many, MANY long nights of taking care of them, and all the stress, and all the dishes and laundry that I’ve done to clean up after them, has really left its mark on me.
Each action and each day is a wrinkle or stretch mark somewhere on my body, and I wouldn’t give them up for the world. Ah, that’s nice, you say – it’s such a touching and heartfelt sentiment. It almost makes you want to cry.
Wait a minute. Don’t give me too much credit. I still might have a tummy tuck if it was like some magical process whereby I walked into the shower and came out three minutes later all smooth and flat and pooch free. It’s the fact that surgery requires a stay in the hospital – and I HATE hospitals – that generally holds me back.
As angry as my kids make me sometimes, I would do anything to protect them though. It’s funny, because I even defend them to each other – like leave your brother alone. If he takes out all the garbage, I’ll give him a ride to the train. Stop calling him a “you are never going to amount to anything” lazy ass. I do lots for you too. Remember, people are what we say they are, and your father and I don’t want him sleeping on the couch forever.
I for sure defend them to their father. My husband knows, if it were him and one of them in the ocean, and I only had one life jacket to throw out, he’d been going down faster than Monica Lewinsky probably went down on President Clinton. He doesn’t like to hear that – and who would? – but it’s the truth. He’s a scientist. He should understand – it’s just biology.
And speaking of biology, here’s a funny little story. Male bass (the fish) will eat their own spawn. As the newborns swim away in search of life in the big sea, the stragglers get gobbled up by their very own daddies who go from protecting their children from predators, to becoming predators themselves. Supposedly, the males do it to ensure that the strong but innocent and cute baby bass are the ones to survive. Sure, they are probably just too lazy to go to the other side of the reef to look for supper.
And we wonder why women go cuckoo for cocoa puffs sometimes. We are the only ones who “no matter what it takes, even if it means we die in the process” care about the continuation of life on Earth as we know it.
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Related Articles:
Heroic Mothers: Amazing Tales Of Moms Protecting Their Young
How Far Would You Go To Protect Your Child?
The Science Of Mother Love Very interesting article.