Mother Guilt

After two nine-hour days at Teen Driving Solutions Schools both Carter and Russ declared the weekend a big success.  This is really something coming from a kid who did not want to spend the weekend with a bunch of people she did not know and a husband who did not know he was going to do the class at all.  Considering the starting point their enthusiasm was impressive.  Friends were made, insights into how to coach your new driver were gained, and lots of hands on experience about different driving situations was had.

While Russ and Carter were being productive and improving themselves, their relationship and understanding of each other I was back at the farm wearing Shay Shay out.  The farm is the one place on earth that Shay gets to roam leash free.  Despite having virtually an unlimited amount of land to explore she tends to stay close by me.

Yesterday being the nicer day weather wise I walked the farm road back and forth until I had logged close to ten miles.  Shay started out running in the grass besides me sniffing everything of interest.  At about mile five I noticed that she was limping.  Perhaps that distance is just too great for such a small dog.

Although she was clearly not walking normally she did not complain or stop walking, but I was worried about exasperating the situation.  I took her to our little house and left her, which caused her a lot more stress than the limp.  She jumped up and down at the glass door crying to go with me.  “Stop jumping on your hurt legs,” I thought as I walked away to get the second half of my steps.

I got back to the house and she was still standing at the back door waiting with the “You left me” guilt look on her face.  I opened the door so she could come out and walk up to the big house with me.  She still was limping and now was noticing it.  I stopped walking and she jumped into my arms with the presumption that I would carry her like a baby.  I tried but about halfway up the road her twenty pound body got just to much for me to carry and I had to put her down to walk on her own.  She did it, but I still felt badly about it.

In my mother guilt voice in my head I thought that it was my fault she had hurt her legs while she was trying to keep up with my long distance walking.  Then that same voice thought why the hell was I not able to carry a measly twenty-pound dog?  Hell, at my absolute fattest I used to carry 145 more pounds around all the time.

Today was much colder and rainy so I ended up walking in the house while watching basketball and Shay lay on the sofa watching me, much happier to have a comfy place to recover yet not be alone.  As I was doing my I-must-be-a-crazy-person-walking-around-in-circles-inside-walk it dawned on me that I did not need to feel guilty about my dog having so much fun running free outside on a beautiful day to the point of pulling something.

Shit happens and it does not have to be anyone’s fault.  I also let go of the guilt I felt that Russ and Carter were doing the driving course and I was not.  In the end they both loved it.

I’m not sure where mother guilt comes from, but I know it is a real thing and not a real good thing most of the time.  I’m sure it causes stress and we all know that stress causes eating and that eating causes, well you know.  So I am going to try and concentrate on not having mother guilt, even if it is about my dog child.  I’ll let you know if I come up with any good tricks to end this millennium old issue.