No, I Won't Snuggle With You When You're Sick

It’s flu season, y’all. The time of year when I regard every human being who I encounter with deep suspicion: Are you a silent carrier? Are you hiding your cough just so you can attend yoga class AND INFECT US ALL? When is the last time you washed your hands? And for the love of god, no, it’s not allergies if you have a 104-degree fever.

The other night at volleyball practice, my daughters’ coach wrapped up the practice by having the kids line up and give him a high five before they left. The mom sitting next to me said, “Oh, that’s so cute!” And I said, with a grinchy look on my face, “This is how we all get COVID.” She laughed. I did not.

Moms are often depicted as being loving humans who snuggle with their children when they are sick. But as my Jungian psychotherapist has reminded me, this is just one archetype of a mother. "There's also the mother who eats her young," she said in a hushed tone one session. I’m not sure what seed she was trying to plant with that gem, but I envisioned eating a baby, bones and all. I imagined it must be like eating a rotisserie chicken, plus a head.

Originally, I was the nurturing mother. When at 6 months old, my daughter had a stomach bug, I held her as she vomited. When she had the respiratory flu, I snuggled her close when it sounded like she was hacking up a chunk of lung. But as the naïveté of new motherhood wore off, I realized that whenever I spent too much time around my sick daughter, I was severely ill a week later with double the symptoms, triple the recovery time, and nobody to take care of me– while the expectation that I care for everyone else (including the now healthy baby with abounding energy) continued.

After the third month of being persistently ill, I looked at my husband who was, much to my chagrin, perfectly healthy. “Why are you never sick?” I asked, displeased with the circumstances. “And why the f*ck is it, that I’m the one who had to push a child out of my vagina, put suction cups on my boobs every 3 hours to collect milk like a dairy cow, AND, be the one who is always sick?” Never mind the fact that I was also working full-time.

I mulled it over in rage as I held our daughter, who refused to sleep in her crib, while he clacked away on his work laptop. Did I have a shitty immune system? (Answer: yes.) Was I not getting enough sleep? (Answer: Obviously, EYE ROLL.) But I finally understood the issue when our sweet daughter sleepily opened her eyes, smiled widely, and coughed directly into my open mouth. Time switched to slow motion and I watched as the germ spores traveled from her mouth to mine. I sh*t you not, I could taste the germs. They tasted like rice cereal with a hint of death. My mind was on fire: Should I run and spit them out? Should I swallow? I should have swallowed approximately one year ago.

That marked the moment when I switched from nurturing mom, to please-for-the-love-of-all-things-holy-don’t-touch-me mom. I’m writing this almost 10 years later, with two daughters who can walk, and talk (snark), and attend school where they are exposed to bioterrorism levels of germs. Now, when flu season rolls around, I stay far away from my kids. I get out the Clorox wipes, and I mix up bleach cleaning solutions at 10x the recommended concentration. And when they are sick, it’s an unspoken rule in my head that my daughters better not touch me.

But see, I haven’t told them this, because I feel guilty about it. It’s a game I have to play. Like in the horror films, when a parent tells their young child they are going to play a game to see who can be the most quiet, in order to not get caught by the serial killer. Except it’s just me playing the game by myself, and I’m trying to avoid touching, eating, or inhaling anything that could put me at risk of being taken down by the vibrant colony of germs that live in my house. I have to avoid my own children without them recognizing that I’m avoiding them. Talk about a mind-fuck.

It’s not easy. “Could you not cough directly in my face?” I beg. Or, “Could you please, for the love of god, throw your own Kleenex’s away so I don’t have to pick up your hazardous waste?” Of course, when they are sick, they want to snuggle. They beg me to come sit on the couch with them and rub their backs. “How about I rub your feet?” I ask. And it’s like they know I’m trying to avoid them, and ask for double their usual hugs and kisses. I hug them, and then immediately wash my hands. As for kisses, I kiss the tops of their heads, which my brain has calculated, is the least risky spot.

My therapist likes to remind me that two seemingly opposing things can be true at the same time. I want my daughters to feel cared for, and I don’t want to touch them. I want them to know how loved they are, and I also don’t want their f*cking germs. I’m working on being the most authentic version of myself. I like to pretend I'm the nourishing mom, but maybe I just need to embrace my mother-eats-her-young archetype and keep those germy hugs away. While also, of course, reminding them just how loved they are.

Laura Onstot started writing to maintain her sanity when she left her career as a research nurse to be a stay-at-home mom. Unfortunately, she realized writing only revealed her insanity. She is not humble at all, and finds her own writing very funny. She forces her friends to read every article she writes, because praise is her drug of choice. You can find more of her writing at lauraonstot.com