“The x-ray is back. It appears your son has a fractured skull.”
Hearing those words from the doctor was overwhelming. My son’s head was swelling like a balloon, and it was clear something was seriously wrong. As I looked at the thin line across the x-ray, nausea gripped me.
This was all my fault.
I dropped my son.
It was an ordinary day, filled with the familiar chaos of changing diapers, baby laughter, and snack time with goldfish crackers. But as I headed to the bathroom to clean off some dead ladybug guts from my 1-year-old’s hands, the unimaginable occurred.
The baby who had been comfortably nestled on my hip suddenly turned into a little acrobat. He tumbled backwards from my grip and landed with a sickening thud. His anguished cries filled the apartment, and dread washed over me.
The night stretched on in the hospital, where I lay on a narrow bed, the beeping of heart monitors ringing in my ears. Next to me was my little one in a yellow gown, his head misshapen. I couldn’t close my eyes or take my gaze off him. Guilt washed over me in waves.
I felt like the worst mother in the world. I deserved the label of “bad mother.” I deserved the looks of disdain and judgment. After all, what kind of mother drops her child? I was meant to protect him, and I had failed!
But as I listened to the sounds around me—the crying baby next door who hadn’t eaten in 24 hours, the boy across the hall needing a blood transfusion, and the feverish toddler—I began to realize that this incident didn’t define my motherhood. Life happens, and accidents are a part of it.
We often place immense blame on ourselves. In the wake of accidents, mom guilt can be suffocating. Why didn’t we see this coming? What could we have done differently?
Yet, these one-time accidents don’t make us “bad” parents. If they did, there wouldn’t be any “good” parents left.
During our stay, the hospital staff reassured us that they see situations like this frequently. I half-expected to be lectured by the nurses about how I should’ve held onto him better, but when I broke down in front of the first nurse I encountered, she simply smiled and said, “It happens. I dropped my daughter onto concrete when she was a few months old.”
“It happens.” While not the most comforting phrase, it was reassuring to know I wasn’t alone in this experience.
Parenting is a journey, filled with both triumphs and setbacks. No matter how hard we try, we can’t shield our children from everything. Illness and injuries are unavoidable parts of growing up.
In these moments, we face a choice: We can drown in guilt, obsessing over what “could have” happened and what we “should have” done, or we can take it as a reminder to appreciate life’s fleeting nature. We’re encouraged to savor every cuddle, every smile, and every giggle.
As parents, we often wish we had held our kids a little tighter or kept a closer watch on them. There will be days we long to rewind the clock; nights when we cry ourselves to sleep, feeling like we’ve failed.
But don’t be too hard on yourself. Remember: just because you feel like a bad mother doesn’t mean you truly are one.
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