Remote

What’s the matter with kids today? I feel like Sarah hasn’t been around much lately, except for her really lovely birthday message. She’s a bit distant, a tiny bit remote, maybe off doing something fun and not thinking about us.

I always worried that I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. When she was a baby, I wasn’t reading her ten books a day like I was supposed to. I let her watch TV. I didn’t take hours and hours of walks with her.

I try to concentrate on the ways I was a good mom for Sarah and got her unique needs met. I was a tireless and sometimes ferocious advocate for her. I took her to so many therapies and activities.

I’m the one who stays home now and watches TV, I work of course, but I seem to spend my free hours with the tube. And Sarah’s out in the world somewhere, doing the work that she’s doing now.