Question: What would you have said?

Today as I was picking up my daughter from preschool and strapping her into her booster seat, she said: “Don’t die, Mom.”

She’s three and a half.

I wasn’t exactly shocked. I had heard her and her big brother talking about “dying the buildings” they made out of blocks. Not killing, dying. So I know she is familiar with the word and has maybe a vague sense of it.

But this was the first time she said something like that point blank to me. And I didn’t really know what to say, so I said the first thing I could think of, which was: “Well…I’ll do my best.”

I’m pretty sure the actual meaning of this conversation is quite different to her than it is to me. I mean, she basically means, “don’t leave me, Mom” and the real gut-wrencher is that someday I will.

But she doesn’t need to know that now, does she?

She wouldn’t understand that, would she?

The idea of being away from my children makes me want to die, to be honest. I can’t imagine living my life without them. But they will hopefully long outlive me.

And then they will live without me.

This is pretty deep for a blog post. Aren’t I supposed to be talking about the laundry or something?

Hey, is this a “mommy blog”?

Hate the term, not the bloggers. If it’s a “mommy blog,” because the blogger is a mother, then I guess all the men who blog and are also parents are doing “daddy blogs.” And “daddy jobs.” And “daddy commuting.” And "daddy trash-to-the-curbing.”

And I guess right now I’m “mommy typing.” And I was just “mommy cleaning” after supper tonight.

Give me a fracking break.

I don't enjoy hearing adults using the word "mommy" to designate someone. Call them a person, a writer, a mother, but please, leave "mommy" for the kids.

Being a mother is an identity and can be a full time job, to be sure, but do we have to cutesie-fy everything and only write about one thing? There are other thoughts in our minds, we “mommies” the media likes to pit against each other when we work part, full or no time “outside the home.”

“Outside the home.” That’s another annoying expression.

I met a really fun woman at a kid’s birthday party who was also (of course) a mother and we hit it off, and she said to me, in a very fakey deep voice, “Do you work outside the home?” I burst out laughing and so did she. Because she doesn’t, and I don’t. And somehow we’re supposed to suddenly be less than human because we are at home with our kids instead of in the boardroom.

We're all human.

And it’s like this taboo thing: if you do “work outside the home” you’re screwed; if you don’t, you’re screwed. If you do, you feel guilty or resent that you’re not home; if you don’t, you feel guilty or resentful that you’re not at work.

Is nobody satisfied? And I ask you, how is all that guilt and resentment good for anyone?

And finally, what do you say to your child when they tell you not to die?