Usually my child-havin’ philosophy is this:

• Kids are resilient
• Kids will tell you, verbally or non-verbally, if there’s a problem
• Kids need, most of all, love and attention, and everything else will follow

Low-key. I do what I need to do for Owen.

But today — and yesterday, of course — I feel totally overwhelmed. I’m poring over the American Academy of Pediatrics book, “Your Baby’s First Year,” and I feel like I am totally out of the loop. Like I need to be paying the tiniest detail to his poops, his breath, the texture and consistency of everything, and that I should be on the phone with my pediatrician at least twice weekly to make sure everything is normal.

I feel like my laid-back [usually], low-key [usually] method is horribly neglectful, that leaving him in a daycare center [there, I’ve said it] is tantamount to abuse, and that he’s crying every night not because he’s overtired [I think he is] but because either A.) he has a rare incurable disease which can only be cured if I stay home and monitor his every move, or B.) he is trying to work through some abandonment issues, and I cannot be trusted as a mother.

Mindfuck, mindfuck, mindfuck.

I know, in my heart, that he’s fine, that I’m either PMSing or simply tired, and that burying myself in childcare books with my baby on my lap [the better to inspect, m’dear] always ends in tears — his or mine.

It’s the mommy version of reading Victoria’s Secret catalogues in your sweatpants. Nothing good could possibly come of that, so why torture yourself?

Who knows why. I only know that I do, and I can’t stop doing it.

I can’t fucking sleep. Go figure, right? Been up since 5:45 in the a.m. and I can’t fall asleep.

I just get so worked up on Mondays, coming down off that weekend high, leaving the baby at “school,” coming home to him all freaked-out and cranky. Doesn’t help that I read an awful archived Baltimore Sun article about the damage done to kids in care — don’t matter what kind of care, daycare center, family care center, even Dad’s capable care. It’s All Mom All The Time Or Your Kid Will Pay The Price.

Damned I am.

I hold the baby as much as I can before work and especially after work, and it just doesn’t feel like enough. Today he was bitterly cranky and overtired, and only his Dad marching him around the house would put him to sleep. Guess who felt like a big, fat failure?

I work 24 hours a week, definitely part-time, but it feels like overtime. And no matter which way we slice it, we just can’t pay the mortgage AND put food on the table if I stay home. That’s what keeps coming back to me, and that’s what kills me. Iain graduated college magna cum laude, and has five years in his current job, plus a load of graduate credits, and no matter how we try we can’t even afford this crappy 1950’s bungalow plus groceries on his salary. I admit the DSL was a splurge, but we have given up cable, my cell phone, going out, brand-name cereal, vacations, ordering pizzas, beer on the weekends, and my precious Netflix subscription for this house. To name a few things.

FUCKING RIDICULOUS. Have I mentioned that before? Ridiculous. I’m not bitter; I love this house, and I’m glad we bought it, but come. on.

And, as a result, I get to gather up all sorts of guilt, all the guilt which is impervious to my weak, ever-fading Anti-Guilt Force Field, and heap it onto my own shoulders until I feel so horrible that I can’t fall asleep because of it. Non-productive guilt, because I have to work. But guilt nonetheless, because, as we all know [chant with me, children] WHAT kind of MOTHER leaves her CHILD with STRANGERS?

A bad one, obviously!

I know this isn’t a healthy way to operate, and thankfully it seems to only be Mondays that hand my ass to me on a gilt platter, but there you have it. I should just schedule in some crying time after deadline since I know I’m going to be doing it anyway.

How do other working moms handle it? Christ, how do they even get ready in the morning? I wake up at 6, and Owen doesn’t go to care until 10:30, and I still find it a tight fit to squeeze in a shower, breakfast and a cuppa joe. What happens when he doesn’t take naps in the morning any more?

I’m exhausting myself further here, with this unproductive nonsense. I do feel a little better for having gotten it off my chest, but that won’t win me back two hours of sleep, now will it?

Edit: I realize that the entity which should bear the heavy heavy burden of my guilt and subsequent anger is the county school board, or whoever the FUCK sets such low wages for high school teachers. Also to blame is the exorbitant cost of daycare, which is somehow coupled with the ultra-low wages for said workers. Sure says something about this country. “Family Values! Stay home with your kids! Don’t try to earn a living wage, though, if you DO like kids, because anything related to child care [including teaching and mothering] has no value to us! At least not monetarily!” I’ll take those family values and SHOVE THEM UP YOUR HEINIE.