Stay-At-Home-Mom Syndrome

The image of the stay-at-home-mom has changed in recent
years. Our aprons have been replaced
with cell-phones and we’ve traded in our cocktails for Xanax and Prozac. The peaceful, nurturing spirit that used to
fill our minds when we thought of stay-at-home-moms, along with the smell of
fresh-baked cookies, has disappeared. Today’s Moms are in a big freakin’ hurry. They're not sure where they’re going but they are going to get there
fast and no one, not even their children, is going to stand in their way.

This image of the pill-popping, cell phone wielding Mother
is not always a fair representation but it certainly is a common sight. I saw an incident today that would make
anyone shudder. I was at the pool,
taking a break from my constant poolside anxiety because both of my kids were
out of the water, when I saw some commotion by the baby pool. There, in the pool, was a little boy who
looked to be around 2-years-old. His
face was in the water and he was clearly struggling. The group of women by the pool called out to his Mother who came
over casually, cell-phone at her ear, and attempted to lift the boy out of the
water by his wrist while still talking on her cell-phone. In her attempt to multi-task, her hand
slipped and her son fell, face first, into the water. She still did not put her phone down. Instead, she rolled her eyes, kept talking and grabbed her son
again, this time successfully taking him out of the water.

It was a very disturbing sight and not one I hope to see
again anytime soon. It brought to light
the stigma that is associated with the modern stay-at-home-Mom as  anxiety ridden, cell-phone weilding,  multi-tasking monsters hardly capable of taking care of themselves, let alone their children. Is the stigma accurate? Obviously it is in some cases. Every stay-at-home-Mom (including myself) I
know has a cell phone that gets a great deal of use and there are a whole lot
of Mamas on Prozac.  The vast majority of them are, however, good people, good mothers
and good citizens of this earth. They
are our friends, our neighbors and, for better or worse, the Mothers of the
next generation. Some of their children
are just going to need a little more therapy than others.

In a very timely, if less-than-graceful, act of redemption
for stay-at-home-Moms everywhere, a Mom (a friend of mine) was sitting by the
baby pool, looking at her friend’s newly printed vacation pictures when her
2-year-old son started to struggle in the water. Without hesitation or regard for anything or anyone, she
jumped into the one-foot waters of the baby pool. She could have scaled a small building with the leap she made
and, before anyone knew what was happening, she had her son out of the water to
safety. Those freshly printed pictures
lay on the surface of the water effectively ruined. If her cell phone had been in hand (it wasn’t) it would be
waterlogged at the bottom of the pool. Everything in her lap at the time her son went under was sacrificed for
her rescue attempt. It was a glorious
sight.