I have an over-developed sense of shame. It probably comes from having had an extremely judgmental mother. I avoid all possible chances of hearing the word “no”, because a restaurant being out of ketchup is a personal rejection. I replay scenes of possible humiliation in my mind over and over, and everything is fodder for the nightly rumination: being wrong, being right in the wrong way, laughing too loud, not laughing when it’s funny, not being funny, being funny in a way no one else gets because I probably mumbled the punchline.  My Sympathetic Cringe Reflex (SCR) means I also feel other people’s shame deeply, to my core, even when they don’t feel ashamed at all by the fact that the waiter gave them sweet potato fries instead of a side-salad, and they don’t even apologize six times when they ask the waiter to go ahead and bring the salad that they ordered.

I was hoping that motherhood would mean I would start giving less of a shit, and I would say that so far it has certainly helped. Things I have done since becoming a mother that I probably would not have done before:

• Attend a free demonstration toddler music class even though I didn’t know anyone else who was going to be there.
• Call to make pediatrician appointments on the phone.
• Give Calvin an apple to eat while still at Whole Foods without first running over to the check-out line to pay for it and then brandishing the receipt to every single store employee I encountered in the aisles lest they think I stole it or was just too entitled to think I had to pay for things like apples because honestly what other types of people shop at Whole Foods but self-absorbed apple freeloaders.

So basically motherhood as turned me into Don Draper.

(Don Draper without the day drinking and chain-smoking and infidelity, that is. Just the part of Don Draper who, that time in the first season when Pete said something like, “I despise you!”, glanced at Pete and said in a perfect dead-pan: “I don’t even think about you.”).

It’s definitely for the best. Before Calvin was born, one of my biggest fears relating to the Zombie Apocalypse was that I would be too polite and worried about what the other survivors thought of me to be of any real use when it came to things like scavenging for food or killing murderous bands of human outlaws. Now I would totally bite out this guy’s jugular if he was threatening my child.

I am Mama Lioness, hear me ROAR!

Just maybe don’t hear me ask for ketchup.