Separation Anxiety

We all experience it. It's a wrenching feeling that defies rational explanation, but that we steel to, inevitably, over time.

You think it can't happen to you - just like you think, BC (before children) that it's thoroughly ridiculous to actually get UP out of bed in the middle of the night to check to see if the baby is breathing. Twelve times.

I'm talking about coming to terms with separation anxiety. And if you think I mean the child, then you may as well stop reading right here, and leave the rest of us to commiserate in peace.

In theory, I thought I ought to be leaping with joy to have some time away from the constant demands of motherhood. A few precious hours to myself in a peaceful adult environment, where, sure, a lot of papers might get piled in my "IN" box, but no one would ask for juice 700 times, or throw up on me. Naturally, I can only speak for my own working environment…

My daughter's initial enthusiasm for the whole pre-school concept was misleading. The little ingrate had been pretty clear that she was tired of being home all day, imprisoned in what I might have considered kid-nirvana, with enough toys to sink the Bismarck, and a Mom who isn't too proud to climb a tree now and then.

The day of enrollment might have passed for a coronation and the first morning a blessed event, with angels singing, clouds parting... you know the drill. I was feeling a little smug.

It was downhill from there. Because, you see, on day TWO she caught on that this wasn't a one-shot deal. She hadn't seen that one coming. Kids aren't naturally suspicious, you see.  Except, of course, when it comes to exotic foods (exotic meaning: not corn.)

This is when the panty hose really started to suffer. As they say, you can peel the hose off the girl…

Suffice it to say, there was crying, and clutching, and weeping, and pleading. NO, IT WASN'T ME! Well, not on the outside anyway.

I put on a brave face. I approached the problem rationally. I tried starting emotional prep the night before. I put cute little picture-notes in her lunchbox, and spritzed her wrist with my familiar cologne. I even hung a framed family photo in the cubby (okay, that was overkill, I admit.)

All the time she had my number. Because, as with all children, she is a dedicated student of Mom's body language. While we're thinking of grocery lists, and tax deadlines, and wondering what that *smell* might be, they're WATCHING us. It's all they do. All day long. And even though they might not SEEM as smart on the surface as adults, they really only have one thing to focus on: what tweaks Mom.

Well, two, if you count Dad, but that's not as hard.

What she didn't count on is that once in a while, I forget about the groceries, the taxes, and the vile odors wafting from the couch, and watch HER. My first clue came when I observed that approximately 2.4 seconds into the hallway, the show stopped. "Earshot," apparently, is a concept that kids have to grow into. Like sweaters from Grandma.

And then, one day, that same exact "fit" she threw - the one that had me blubbering all the way to work for a month - made an appearance when she mistakenly got served some *green* Jell-O instead of the coveted, superior blue variety.

I'd been HAD.

Yes, the worst of the separation anxiety is on OUR side. It goes hand-in-hand with the whole maternal guilt reflex: we just can't help ourselves.

We might, however, be more able to keep our doubts secret if they offered Maternal Body Language 101 along with Lamaze. Actually, now that I think of it, Lamaze techniques might just do the trick.