A couple weeks ago, my husband and I took our two kids to Borders to try to hit get some books for cheap(er) during its going out-of–business sale. It was pandemonium””people everywhere, snatching up books, leaving some shelves empty.
I headed toward the cookbooks with my 4-year-old daughter behind me, and I thought my 3-year-old son was sticking behind with his dad. A couple minutes later, we go looking for the guys.
“Hey, I see Thomas!” my daughter said, tugging my arm and pointing away from where we were heading. I turn and see one of the store employees holding my son. His cheeks were red and wet with tears. “It’s okay; we’ll find your mommy,” she said to him, rubbing his back.
I ran up to her and grabbed him. “Thank you,” I said, making a beeline to my husband, who didn’t even know our son had been wandering around the store aimlessly by himself.
Once I told my husband what happened (we both assumed he was with the other parent), he wiped the tears from my son’s face, hugged him for a minute to make sure he was okay, and then went back to browsing the shelves.
I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck the rest of the day. I had concluded that it was my fault; I hadn’t been watching him carefully enough. I couldn’t sleep that night and was still a little shaky the next day thinking about what could have happened and how lucky we were that we found him quickly and without incident.
It got me to thinking about the differences between moms and dads in how we approach this parenting business. For my husband, once the kid was okay, the world could resume and we go about our day. But for me, every little parenting misstep has to be analyzed to minimize the chances of it happening again. While I’m not in my husband’s brain and don’t know exactly what he was thinking, I feel like my husband doesn’t take incidents personally. He does the best he can and lets the rest fall by the wayside. I often wish I could be more like him. It would make parenthood much less stressful!
It is times like these that I am glad we are in this as a team, working to complement each other and form a cohesive unit. He keeps me from getting too wound up, I help him bring out his emotional side. It works.
Are there any major differences in how you and your spouse parent?