Guilt in a Whole New Form

I've got a whole new area of guilt that I'm trying to deal with now. I thought I had covered most aspects of guilt already, but boy, was I wrong.

We had a friend of Mini-Husband's with us for the last two nights, a lovely kid who actually listened to me. I think he was the only one who actually sat at the table during dinner and it was him alone that made the efforts to clean up the toys before bed. But as lovely as he was, the biased side of motherhood started to rear it's ugly head.

Yes, motherhood is biased. Horribly biased. There are no other children anywhere on this earth that are as wonderful or as amazing as yours. None smell as good, none smile as brightly, none laugh those belly laughs like your kids do. Perfection has been achieved! And it's fighting with you over having a bath!

It's this aspect of motherhood that I'm trying to control. And even as Mini-Husband sat next to his friend and they worked on their math homework, it took everything in me to swallow that bitter mix of pride and guilt as I watched them work. Oh the joy of watching Mini-Husband doing his numbers so quickly and neatly while his friend struggled with his eraser yet again! And even though I told him off, how could I not be secretly, evilly pleased that Mini-Husband had given his friend the answers to the hard problems? Not to mention how smug I felt that my beautiful incredible son didn't demand an extra night light at bedtime?

Enter maternal guilt and visions of me driving that damn bus to hell yet again!

I had no idea that motherhood would do this to me. I thought being a mother would help teach me how to be patient and kind. Help me learn how to really love someone, no matter what. I had visions of motherhood being a portal into that dream world of tolerance and acceptance. No one explained to me that the phrase, "nothing like a mother's love," really means, "my kids rock the most and yours, well, yours are ok too, I guess."

I was extremely relieved when our friend showed up for her son. She grabbed him in her arms and smothered that poor boy with loads of kisses. Real mommy kisses. My guilt eased a touch at that point because it was obvious to me that she was thinking the same thing I was. That there really isn't anything like a mother's love and "my kid rocks the most."