New Year’s Day found me in the middle of a conversation that exposed both how I’ve come to terms with my daughter’s asthma over the years, and how very far I still have to go.

I’m not known for changing my mind easily. Friends and family would describe me as *infuriatingly stubborn* since I find few things harder than backing down from a position even if I know I’m wrong. Like most personality flaws, though, this one occasionally serves me well as it means a great natural ability to stick to unpopular positions and take the hard stances.

Raising a child with asthma has a way of magnifying my personality quirks like this one and forcing it into a weird gray area. When faced with a health questions for AG, does my obstinance fight my good sense or does it instead make me a better, more concerned parent? I honestly don’t know sometimes, and every so often I have a conversation like Monday’s that plunges me back into the confusion and self-doubt of AG’s early, severe years.

On that day at my mom’s house, AG and her sister played in the front yard with their cousins–my brother’s kids–and the neighbor girl. Until my mother mentioned the neighbor kid’s mother has the flu.

*Ooh, I don’t know if I want you playing with her then,* I told AG. *School starts next week and you just got over a cold.*

That’s reasonable, right? No? Yes? Bear in mind also A)the extreme contagion of the flu, B)the danger of complications from the flu for asthmatics, and C)the fact that I work from home and my kids have been on school holiday for almost 2 weeks now, and I want nothing–NOTHING–to prevent them from going back on Monday.

I mulled over the various aspects of AG playing/not playing with the possibly germy neighbor while simultaneously ignorning the pleading look on her face when my brother said,

*But they’re outside.*

The expression on his face, however, said I am dealing with a crazy person here.

Me: Yeah, I know, but they’re kids. What if they, I dunno, hold hands or something?

Brother: But it’s cold. And windy.
(Implication: brisk weather = almost non-existent germ factor)

Me: But what if she coughs on AG?

That’s when I started rehashing AG’s early childhood and the sleepless nights he never had to suffer through, and that’s when he stopped arguing and just shrugged. You know that shrug. It’s the body-language equivalent of his I am dealing with a crazy person here expression.

He meant well, I know, but it makes me crazy when parents of healthier children project their own parenting style onto me.

First, don’t question my authority in front of my own kid.

Second, how can anyone understand the worry and nausea, the stark fear of watching a child struggle to breathe night after night, except another parent who’s done the same? Or a parent facing a different, equally scary chronic issue in a beloved child? The rules I have for AG are, of necessity, going to be different than his rules for his own children.

Worst of all, his words and expression made me feel like I’ve made no progress at all, that I’m still the scared mom trying to drag my daughter into a germ-free corner when I was simply trying to protect her.

Because he was right, and admitting that was doubly hard in light of my mulishness and his interference:

1. The kids were outside on a very cold and windy day.

2. AG is almost 9, and kids that age aren’t nearly as touchy-feely or orally fixated as when they’re young. Chances for germ transmission by touch were fairly low.

3. While the neighbor had a sick mother, she exhibited no signs of illness herself.

This internal conflict is what happens when a stubborn person finds herself in a fiercely maternal and purely instinctive defensive position. When that instinct kicked in while AG was little I made Protect this child Protect this child Protect this child my mantra.

Nothing wrong with that sentiment, of course. As AG’s mother, that’s what I’m supposed to do. The problems come when I can’t separate my emotions from the actual situation in front of me to figure out the sane, practical course to take. Especially now that AG is not the severely asthmatic young child she once was.

And when someone questions my authority, why that just makes me strengthen my position even more because just who is the parent of this kid, anyway? It’s hard to try to be a reasonable person again.

I did let AG play by the way, but my point is that I’m always struggling with that fight for the midline, and doubting myself is not the most auspicious way to start 2008.

It’s a new year. Maybe I need a new mantra.

Filed under: Asthma Girl, Asthma Moms and Dads, Asthma Triggers, Children's Asthma, Children's Health, Holidays