Guilt, Fear and Gender Bullshit

When I was about 5, I was “helping” my Father build a rock-wall for the garden.  I honestly don’t remember the entire incident well enough to tell you exactly what happen; but it ended with a rather large rock crushing part of my pinky, blood splattered all over the side of my parent’s house, and me in the ER.  Fortunately I did not end up loosing my finger, but the worst of the damage can still be seen today. It’s not horribly disfiguring or anything, but it is noticeable on close inspection. This weekend I had the opportunity to see just how frightening and how much guilt laden anxiety there is when your child is hurt on your watch. Thankfully, Elijah’s pinky faired better than mine, it doesn’t look like there will be lasting damage. No, I did not accidentally place a small boulder on my child’s hand. I did however take my eyes off of him at the wrong moment and did not pay close enough attention to our surroundings.

Melissa and I took the boys to Petsmart to pick up some litter and cat food. We were planning to run a few more errands, so Melissa decided to run to the bathroom while I checked out with the boys. She handed me her Petsmart card and I headed to the register, Elijah was in the shopping cart/child seat and Joshua was walking next to me. We buy in bulk so the girl at the register came around to scan the large items in my cart. She also neglected to turn off the conveyor belt. Midway down the belt there was a triangular-ish metal doohickey that is meant to keep things flowing down the center of the belt. Apparently there is enough of a gap for an 18 month old’s pinky to get wedged between said doohickey and the belt. As I was handing her the Petsmart card to be scanned, I hear Elijah screaming.  I saw his finger was stuck, tried to pull it out and realized I couldn’t without doing more damage.  I then forcefully told  (OK maybe I yelled *slightly*) at this girl to shut of the belt. As she was trying to do so, she moved the shopping cart. OK this time I definitely yelled…SHUT OFF THE BELT… DON’T TOUCH THE CART. So she shuts of the belt and I still can’t manage to get his finger out. After what seemed like an eternity, but was really a couple of seconds, I thought to slip my car keys under the doohickey and pry it up enough to safely pull Elijah’s finger out. There was some skin missing and it was a bit swollen, and he was crying so hard he was shaking the entire ride home, but it doesn’t appear to have caused any lasting damage. We gave him some Ibuprofen and let him take an early nap. It is still a bit raw and a little swollen, but he isn’t complaining and it doesn’t look crushed or broken.

OK for the Gender Bullshit part.  We drew a bit of a crowd but things were handled. I kept  my cool (I did not tear up until we were in the car on our way home). I got his finger out (mostly intact) and I was doing a pretty darn good job of trying to soothe him and Joshua under the circumstances.  And, that is when some random lady comes up and asks – “Where is their mother”. I turned and stared at her, expecting her head to explode; that never happened and after a few moments of me staring at her, she walked away.  I’m sure she was just trying to be helpful and she probably didn’t entirely mean it the way it sounded. But on some level I’m pretty sure she did. If this happened under Melissa’s watch, no one would have turned to her and said, Where’s their father. Bottom line, just because I don’t have a vagina doesn’t mean I can’t comfort my children. And of course feel horribly guilty when I ef up.

And yes I know you shouldn’t start a sentence with a conjunction.

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