Happy World Book Day, everybody! I celebrated this morning by doing a bookstore event at my lovely local Waterstones, talking to a class of Year 6's about writing and about turning impractical dreams into practical goals. They were bright and fun and enthusiastic, and they asked great questions. I loved it.

(I also scooped up a £1 copy of Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star while I was in-store. Score!)

Now I'm home, though...and for practical reasons having to do with M.E./CFS, I'm having to take this first hour home as a rest period while Patrick takes MrD for his prescheduled booster shots/injections.

This is totally fine. I know it's totally fine. And yet...

Here's where all my core beliefs as a feminist and as a parent clash hard against all my ingrained social training about motherhood.

Patrick is the one who drops off MrD and picks him up from school every day. This is also fine. Why wouldn't it be fine? But there's one other mother in particular at that school who has made a point every time I've ever seen her of referring (over and over again) to how weird it is that I'm not the one doing school pickups and drop-offs. I mean, she is really genuinely weirded-out by it!

Why? I'm not sure. We're not even the only couple that handles it that way - there's one dad I know of who's a full-time, stay-at-home parent, and a few other couples juggle the dropoffs and pickups regularly. But every time that mother makes a little edgy joke about the weirdness of my absence from school drop-offs, I feel a little jab like the underlying message (whether she actually means it this way or not) is: I'm not being a good mother. I'm not performing the proper duties of a mother.

I know I'm probably over-reacting. What really makes the jab hurt is my own mom-guilt. Patrick and I are pretty much equal co-parents, and I believe with all my heart that that's the best thing we can do for MrD right now (as well as the only practical way to handle things, with M.E./CFS as a real issue).

But at times like today, when there's an official milestone for MrD taking place, and Patrick's the one handling it instead of me...well, that's when the little whispers start in the back of my head, the place I've internalized every social message I've ever heard, no matter how toxic. And the whispers say: A good mother would be there, no matter what it took.

Sigh.

I wish there was a way to shut those toxic whispers off. Since there isn't (or at least, I haven't found it), I'm sharing the experience here, as a way of leaching the poison. Also, I've found a lot of comfort in reading the experiences of other parents as they juggle these issues.

And when it really comes down to it...well, my family still tells the story of when I was three years old and my little brother had to have his first shots. The nurse walked in, took out the needle...and I went into hysterics on the floor, completely overwhelmed and unable to cope with the horrible pain my baby brother would be suffering.

My brother, on the other hand? Didn't even cry. It wasn't a big deal, to him.

So it's probably best that I'm not there for these shots. I try not to have hysterics on the floors of doctor's offices anymore...but you never know.

And this afternoon is going to be devoted to pure mom-time, to make up for it.

Still, I think I need more chocolate. :(