I’m the paranoid parent I never thought I would be.Before I had kids, I had this idea of the kind of parent I would be. It mostly involved a woman I have never met before – cool mom Maria. Cool mom Maria would have an innate understanding of what her children needed at all times. Cool mom Maria would say things like, they do it when they’re ready and kids will be kids! Cool mom Maria would laugh and shake her head when her children faltered. She would observe her children from a far at the park. She would appear to be almost totally unaffected by the constant energy it takes to keep a human alive.Cool mom Maria does not exist.Totally-freaked-out-mom Maria does, though – and she is a total pain in the ass. Not to mention the fact that she is destroying all the fantasies I’d always had about the type of mother I would be.I should have guessed there would be some paranoia involved in my parenting; weird things freak me out. I have a totally unnatural fear of people choking. Not just my child, the whole world and all of the adults in it, too. I’ve never personally had a hard time getting a piece of meat down my gullet without blocking my airway – but for some reason I think this is super hard for the rest of humanity. I’ve taken CPR classes and imagined how I would handle giving a large adult the Heimlich. I look at my husband apprehensively when he takes a huge bite of his steak. Is this a thing? Is it an actual phobia? A quick glance at the Google machine says, no. There is no actual word for this – only for the fear of you yourself choking on something (which is anginophobia).I should have guessed this would by magnified 1000% when I had a child. I cut my toddler’s food in such small pieces I swear he looks at me with this bubble over his head that reads, what in the hell are you doing, woman? How many bites do you think I need to take to get through this hot dog? Now that I have an infant and a toddler, the fear of my toddler choking on something has been somewhat upstaged by the fear that he is going to shove something in my infant’s mouth. Seriously, what is wrong with me?
Read the rest on Mommyish...
