Parenting As If I Might Get Hit by a Bus Tomorrow

And they are very good at it. They are tremendously independent and do so much.

Both children can get food for themselves from the pantry and the refrigerator. I keep healthy food within easy reach, and tell them frequently the importance of eating healthy food first.

They can dress themselves, and Patience can even change Persistence’s diaper. She can clip her own and Persistence’s nails. They know the bedtime and morning routines, and Patience will tell Dad clearly if he makes lunch the way she expects. We’re working on learning time, and how to read a calendar.

They are “sharpening their saws,” and I am doing my best to help.

Not to be morbid (again) but I know that were I to be lost, they’d lose their female model. I have asked friends and family to please ensure they know how to do things they’ll need to. They have extracted the same promise from me. It feels creepy, but also reassuring and responsible.

And that got me thinking (again, more).

Would my husband really let my kids go snarly haired, ragtag dress, lunchables in the lunch kits every day, cavity-ridden teeth, off schedule for well-child check-up and so on if I were not around?

I seriously doubt it. I’m sure he’d step up to the plate, but as we all know or can imagine, doing parenting solo means some things get compromised.

I compromise many times every day, and that’s with another parent bracketing the ends of each day.

And that got me thinking (yet again, even more).

Does the loss of a mom versus a dad matter to a different degree, in a different way?

Up to this point, I had pondered losing a parent in the same way: a tragic loss.

But perhaps, just perhaps, it’s not an equitable loss.

I’m sure type of personality for the parent, age and gender of children matter in the weighing of it all, but it strikes me that in general, at my kids’ ages, you tend to see more moms doing the little things that grease the wheels for a comfortable life.