I Am Afraid Of My Son

That's the type of attention-grabbing headline that Salon would put on this. My son is 2 1/2. He is not violent, in fact, he is a sweet little boy. Therein lies the problem.

A bit of history. My mother was an alcoholic. My father was violent and scary. By the time I was thirteen I had stopped trusting them. By the time I was twenty I hated them. I judged them harshly, I vowed to never be like them.

Now I am the parent. Now I am the one disciplining, saying 'no', refusing to listen to whining and pleas. I worry - will my son hate me the way I hated my parents? I know that rejecting parental values and testing limits is a natural part of growing up, will my son one day turn a critical eye on my the way I did my parents? Will he diagnose me with some trendy psychological malady he read about? Will he only hear me through the filter of psychobabble?

I worry that my son will think that I am an idiot because I cannot do math in my head. I apologize alot and avoid conflict. I strain hard in social situations to make people comfortable. Will he hate this about me?

I spend alot of time snuggling happily with my son. He gazes up at me with guileless adoration. He says "You are my best friend Mommy". He pounds on the door when I am in the bathroom, wanting to be with me. Naturally, I love being adored - but I know that it only lasts for so long.

I have never seen anyone study my face with as much intensity as my son does. I look at his beautiful eyes and worry about what will happen when he inevitably turns away from me? My greatest fear is that I will take is personally and respond like a jilted lover, screaming, clutching, guilt-tripping him for only doing what is natural.

Will be able to handle the razor-sharp criticism of an naive, psuedo-sophisticated young adult? Will I be able to handle it when he prefers his friends to me?

I hope so, but every day I fear the inevitable rift that will occur when he begins to criticize me.