To Serve and to Protect

I need you to promise me something.

If I ever in my life reach a point where I cannot deal with the truth, whatever it may be, about my child(ren), please shoot me.

I mean, I can sort of see how it would be tempting to blind yourself to what is going on with your child. Your child is of your DNA, they are perfect, they are little copies of you. Whatever flaw or behavioral problem or whatever is often seen as a direct reflection upon you and your lack of parenting skills.

I get it.

About a month ago, Mr. P's preschool teacher pulled me aside and mentioned that Mr. P seems to have "sharing" issues. I thanked her for the information and got in my car. But, having a little alone time to digest what she had told me, my first instinct was to deny it. To think that perhaps the teacher didn't know what the hell she was talking about.

Then, I moved on to anger, who did she think she was, anyway? Of course he has a problem sharing, he's four! In a class of all boys, who I'm sure try to alpha dog each other to death every day, of course he isn't going to share!

It took me a while, but I finally moved into acceptance. I had a theory that perhaps because he is currently an only child, he is not used to sharing toys on any kind of regular basis. But that did not deter both Hubba-hubba and myself having a talk with him about sharing and being nice to people. And hardly a day goes by that before we drop him off at school, we don't remind him about sharing.

Why, why do mothers have such a hard time accepting the sometimes ugly truth about their offspring? Seriously, I want to know.

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