Mother Guilt

This parenting thing comes with a great amount of joy....and a great amount of guilt. It is so hard to know you are making the right decisions for your children. Most of the time I feel pretty good, but then I do something so ridiculous that it makes me question everything!

A while back I (innocently) e-mailed the newspaper. They were looking for local stories. We were very excited because BG had just arrived. It sounded like a good, happy story to me. Well...this has turned out to much more of an article than we expected. Unfortunately, the reporter seems to be having difficulty grasping much of what we are explaining. So...I apologize in advance to all my friends touched by the pain of infertility and the joy of adoption. We are unsure about how those topics are going to be portrayed in the article.

But, I digress. For the article, they sent a photographer to our home to take pictures. BB LOVED it...and the photographer loved him. She ended up posting a picture of him on a blog and writing a little description of his enthusiasm and "question asking" abilities. Fueled by this fun experience, and by seeing the gorgeous pictures of my sweet boy, I decided to e-mail some pictures of him to a modeling agency.

Within a day they contacted us and invited us to take BB to an audition for a Hasbro product. I took him into a marketing/photography studio in the city. Once again, BB had a wonderful time meeting new people and getting his picture taken. We were excited when they contacted us a few days later to tell us that Hasbro selected him to come in and do a photo shoot.

We went back to the studio. At first it was a lot of fun. BB got to wear new clothes (and new shoes...his favorite!). The product was a stuffed Elmo. The people made him laugh and he made them laugh. After a while, someone made the decision that the shirt he had on was too big for him. They had me change his shirt, and basically started the shoot all over again.

This is the point my little boy became overwhelmed. He started to cry and ask to sit on my lap. Unfortunately, apparently parents are supposed to not talk during the picture taking. Every word of comfort and encouragement I gave him, was greeted with evil looks and reminders that I was not helping. I was not helping!!! I am his mother and it was me that he wanted.

I did not do right by my baby. A couple of times they wanted me to comfort him and then bring him back for more pictures. At one point they asked me to step out of sight because they felt he would do better without me there! Obviously, he didn't do better at all.

I should have put on his coat and packed him into the car at that very moment. I so wish I had. I feel like I let him down. Nothing of that nature is worth making him feel bad. I did my best to explain to them that he needed me, and I needed to be there for him. I think it all went right past them.

Will we do this again? I don't think so. Maybe it was just the personalities involved, or the fact that it was his first time. Nevertheless, this does not seem like a good path for us. I think we will stick to taking pictures with my Cannon point and shoot.