Some days, when mothering was extra difficult and irritating, I would escape to a good bubble bath and dream of the life of the sea turtle. Consider the life of the sea turtle. Sea turtles swim fee in the ocean (to make this work you have to ignore that they are an endangered species). When it is mating time, they swim hundreds of miles or so until they find a sandy beach. Once on the beach, they dig a hole, lay a hundred eggs or so, bury those eggs with some moist sand, return to the ocean, and swim away.
Some time later, the eggs hatch and the baby sea turtles make their way to the ocean (or maybe they don't--admittedly that is sad, but that is nature, and the momma sea turtles need not feel guilty about it).
It is a beautiful thing. Sea turtle mothers never have to settle disputes between bickering sea turtle offspring. They never have to make sure that sea turtle offspring mind their homework, music practices, or chores. And even if sea turtle offspring talk back or get disrespectful with their mothers, their mothers never hear it because they are off swimming in a different part of the ocean.
I guess sea turtles exit their shells and immediately know how to be sea turtles. Human babies don't wake up and know how to be human. No, it turns out that human babies need the help of human mothers to become fully human, and they need that help for quite a long time.
Some days I got it right. Some days I had to soak.
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