FOR THE LOVE OF CODDLING.

Oh, the shame. The disbelief.

I… was… once… a kid coddler. And I loved it.

There. It’s out.

I woke him up gently each morning – turning off his white noise machine and softly cooing to him that it was time to rise and shine. I picked out his outfit for school after I turned on his shower to warm it up. He was 12 at the time.

After she kicked off her shoes, I sprang into action and untied them and placed them neatly by the door. Her dirty socks and wet towels never stayed on the floor – I would be sure they found their way to the hamper without a word. She was a full decade old. Yup.

These were smart kids. Perhaps too smart. Of course, they knew how to turn on their own shower and they were fully capable of putting their own dishes in the dishwasher. But, why bother? I taught those smart kids well - - Mommy made everything better.

Truly, it was my own stuff that caused me to put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes… to cook three different meals at dinnertime… and to go spelunking under the couch to find their missing baseball…

What kept me in full coddle-mode? It was the ever-present threat of an anvil full of working-mom guilt dangling above my head. It could have crushed me at any moment and I thought I could redirect my guilt trip with some good ol’-fashioned doting. Humph. It seemed reasonable at the time, but I think we all know where this is going.

And there it was. Lightbulb. How was I going to raise these kids to be good grown-ups who contribute to society if I don’t make them take responsibility for, ya know, homework deadlines and putting their gym shorts in the laundry? I banished the personal chef/assistant/maid/butler that day – and I sent the guilt packing, too. Much to my kids’ chagrin, I stopped pampering without purpose. (OK, I admit it - their birthdays are still full-on coddle fests – but, c’mon, ya gotta give me something!)

These days I can still hear the quiet, slow creak of the anvil-of-guilt above me, but I no longer see its lurking shadow. That’s some mighty progress. But the truly happy ending to this cautionary coddling tale is that each of my kids is a self-sufficient, hard-working, loving, giving human being. Their stinky socks still miss the hamper sometimes, but this mom just keeps on walkin’… they’ll figure it out on laundry day. Anvil be damned.