Love Sick

by Patti


The first time I realized I didn’t like my daughter, I cried.

Up until that moment, I had been moon-eyed in love with her. Everything she did was magical! And perfect! And miraculous!

But then one day, it wasn’t magical. Or perfect. Or miraculous.

Instead, I found myself clutching my chest in horror at the realization that, at that moment, there was nothing I liked about my kid.

I felt horrified and guilty and like the Worst Mother on the Planet, how could I not like my own kid?

I threw myself on my bed to the lovely strains of her tantrum in the background – probably the 5th that day – and cried. I cried for the loss of that delicious, all-encompassing feeling I had known since she was born just under 2 years ago, I cried for my daughter, who was obviously being raised by a black-hearted serial killer, I cried for how hard it suddenly all was.

I let myself cry for a few minutes, and as the tantrum waned in the background, so did my tears. I wearily lifted myself off the bed and into my daughter’s room, gathered her sweaty-with-anger little body into my arms, and just hugged the crap out of her. "How could I not like this?" I thought to myself.

After I got her distracted with some toys, I called a veteran mother friend of mine. The second I heard her voice, I felt like I was in a musty confession box, and she was my understanding priest. I spilled my sin: “Something’s wrong with me, I think… I don’t like S right now. I mean, I really don’t like her, and it’s freaking me out!” I felt myself getting ready to cry again.

My friend – some priest she was – started to laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” I felt myself starting to get hysterical. “It’s NOT funny! This is bad!”

“Oh, Patti”, she teased, “Welcome to REAL motherhood, and to the first of THOUSANDS of time you will not like your kid.”

I felt a balloon softly lift out of my chest, making me suddenly feel weightless. “You mean, it’s NORMAL?”

“God, not only is it NORMAL, it’s INEVITABLE. You will not always like your kid, it’s just a fact that you need to accept right now. I mean, seriously? They can make it impossible to like them. Think about it: They whine, they cry, they demand, they’re messy, they smell, they interrupt your conversations, they don’t sleep, they get up when it’s still dark outside… how is that LIKEABLE?”

I thought about what she said, and it made perfect sense. In fact, I suddenly felt like a freak for having liked my kid without fail all this time. Either I was totally dumbstruck and blind with love, or she was a con artist in diapers. Which was it?

At that moment, S toddled into the room, her chubby, dimpled hands offering me her fake cell phone, her face lit up by a crooked grin. That’s when I realized: It was both.