Mother Smother 

Ever feel smothered by motherly love? It can happen, and I felt it the day I strolled around a barn near my house. Babies yearn to go, and mamas want them to stay. The tension is real and, maybe I’m projecting my own childhood onto the animals, but isn’t there a detectable discomfort in the little one’s face? I was an independent little lassie as a child, a tomboy/girl who ran wild and free, sometimes near home, sometimes miles away. My sister and I often now joke that we’d never have survived our mother in today’s texting, FaceTime, pin your child’s location universe. 

Winston-Salem, NC