There’s a hospital in Chicago where they have speed-dating for doctors.  No, not for doctors who are looking for dates; for patients who are looking for a doctor.  Like at a regular speed-dating event, patients move from doctor to doctor, asking questions, in the quest for their perfect match in an OB/GYN or General Practitioner.  It’s supposed to be a new way for patients to find doctors that they’re comfortable with, and for doctors to ensure meaningful versus transactional relationships with their patients.

As Mother’s Day approaches, this event made me wonder: if you could speed-date to find your perfect doctor, what if you could speed-date to find your perfect kid?  The thought got my husband and I laughing.  And then, fantasizing…

We could saunter up to the kid who refused to eat his peas and say, ‘Sorry buddy, you’re not a match!’.  Or, we could avoid that little girl we see throwing public tantrums and say “Sayonara, kiddo, we’re saving ourselves years of embarrassment at our local Safeway!”  We could even choose the kid who is gifted in music AND sports AND potty-trains himself, we laugh, getting a little too carried away.  Ah yes, to choose what our kids turn out to be, what they’ll eat, how they behave…

But then, I wonder, what if the opposite were true?  What if our kids got to choose their Mom?

The thought spins me into a panic attack as I ask myself the question that all moms will ask at some point in their lives:  “Am I a good mom?” Or in this case, do my KIDS think I’m a good mom?  If my kids didn’t know me from Adam, would they, out of a room of hundreds of prospective moms, *gulp*, still choose me?

The thought is crushing.  Of course they’d choose what they believed a “good mom” is.   They’d choose the one that would let them watch Dora all day and eat cookies for breakfast; the one that didn’t force them to wash their hands before eating, or make them finish their veggies before getting dessert.

They wouldn’t yet realize that this woman trying to be “good mom” is precisely the one that sometimes has to say “No” to fun things.  It’s the one that tries not to let their little eyes bug out with 6 hours of TV, the one that limits cookies to special “treats,” the one that makes them wash their hands so they don’t get sick, the one that tells them to eat their broccoli…

My 4 year-old daughter wouldn’t yet realize that putting up these boundaries is my attempt to teach her self-respect and self-control.  My 2-year old son wouldn’t understand my belief that restricting rewards to certain times only makes those moments more special.  They wouldn’t see the daily struggle I face of when to say “yes” and when to say “no.”…

Of course, deep in my heart, I hope my kids would choose me; but at ages 4 and 2, I certainly wouldn’t expect it.  I can only hope that one day they’ll appreciate my attempts to be a “good mom” and that maybe one day, when my kids are 24 and making their own decisions, or when they are 42 with kids of their own, that they’d choose me.