Mother of the Year

I am a private person. One reason that I gave up acting was that I wasn't comfortable living part of my life eternally in the public eye (The other reason that I gave up acting was that nobody could conceive of hiring me, but that's another story). So why write about my life in a place where someone could read it? Why choose, as I have, to focus on the more embarrassing moments of my existence? Because my life, right now, can be summed up by a mathematical equation:

PP+ 20m= PH(e)2.

That is, any Private Pride I feel about my ability to run my life, take care of my child, attend to my business or behave in a way that could be described as competent will be followed, in less than twenty minutes, by a Public Humiliation that is equal to the Private Pride squared.

Example #1 - When my daughter was six weeks old, I had my very first date by myself. It was an adventure both heady and exotic. I made a trip to the car wash.

Leaving Consort and Child at home, I put on a bra for the first time since leaving the hospital, crammed myself into clothing, and headed off. While sitting at the car wash, enjoying the sensation of not having someone hanging from my nipple, I noticed a woman waiting for her car with a tiny infant in a bucket seat. She and I started to chat, and I told her about my child at home. She looked at me appreciatively.

"You look good", said she.

I thanked her.

"No, really, you look great. I can't believe you had a kid six weeks ago."

I blushed becomingly, got into my car to go home, and mused about what she said. I did look good, I acknowledged. Better than good, I looked...great. Really great. I started to imagine that people in our neighborhood, seeing me walking my new baby, might wonder if I had adopted her, or assume I was walking with someone else's' child. I looked that good. Gliding home on steel-belted tires and arrogance, I walked into the house, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

My shorts were on inside-out.

Pockets flapping, seams gaping, no-way-that-anyone-missed-it, inside-out. Four and a half years later, I still don't understand how I managed to button them.

This wasn't a one-time event, either. There were other times when people told me how together I looked -- being the parent of an infant and all -- when I would later find out I had gotten some major piece of clothing catastrophically wrong. It got to the point where if someone seemed to be heading towards me saying something pleasant, I'd instinctively grab my hipbone to make sure my underwear wasn't on over my pants.

Example #2 - Recently, there was a terrible car accident on the major road leading out of our neighborhood. I won't try to minimize the death, horror and pain of this, but I am a mother and can only hold one thought at a time, so my most immediate concern was about the morning commute to Daughters' school. I hustled her out of bed a little early, got her dressed, got her into the car, and found a route that neatly circumvented the emergency crews, while also missing most of the traffic jam that had been created by this tragedy. Considering the extra levels of stress, and the hair-brushing fit she threw, I was commending myself for staying calm and cheerful as we pulled up to school. Why, we'd even made it a couple of minutes earlier than usual.

As I parked, a small voice piped from the back. "Are you planning on feeding me breakfast?".

Oh. That.

We rummaged around in her lunchbox and I decreed that raisins, eaten while walking into school, are "A fun picnic! A picnic with all your friends! Who had their picnics at home!" Nothing says Quality Parenting quite like skulking across the schoolyard frantically feeding raisins into your child's mouth like a slot machine.

So, if I continue to blab about what I have gotten -- and continue to get -- wrong, then maybe the equation will work the other way. In the algebra of karma, maybe I will build up enough Public Humiliation points that I can start to feel genuine pride about the most important work I am doing: raising my daughter.

More likely, by actually feeling a little pleasure in having finally written this down, I have set the original equation in motion. Within twenty minutes, I will be in a parking lot screaming at my child, "You have to eat three French fries before you can have any ice cream! Did you hear me?"

I will then notice no less than five women from Pre-Natal Yoga, watching me in mute horror.

When this happens, I promise to report on it.