A Buggy Situation

It's an interesting thing to be a mother and to analyze the things that were passed down to you from your mother and the things that you, in turn, give to your children. It's no secret to anyone who has spent some time with me that I have what you could call "an issue" with bugs. I am not someone who jumps on a chair and screams if there is a spider nearby, but instead, at the suggestion that there could be a bug crawling on me or in my hair, I get all itchy and paranoid. I fear ticks and head lice and worst of all, any bugs crawling on my food. Perhaps this is why I have a mental problem with eating food fresh out of someone's garden. It feels cleaner (though less fresh) from the grocery store. Yes, roll your eyes and judge me now, but this is just a factual statement about my irrational feelings. Since my sister has some similar feelings about bugs, I have decided to put the blame on our mother (isn't that what my generation is supposed to do? blame our parents). I have strong memories of paper bags of corn coming to our kitchen from a local garden or farm, still in the husks. She assigned us to the de-husking and de-silking detail. Pulling back the husks would inevitably reveal giant caterpillars or worms on the corn, which would disgust me. My mom would tell us to get tough and brush the insects off, which was unthinkable. She also would take us to a farm owned by a friend of our family. There we would buy fresh eggs and chicken. When I say fresh, I mean it would still be walking around when we got there. She would have us stand back and observe as the chicken would be beheaded and of course when it's body would run for cover after. She wanted us to be hands-on, so when the chicken body was recovered, we had to help with the feather removal. I can still remember the look of that nasty skin after the feathers were pulled.

What she had was a desire for her children to "get tough" and have new experiences. But somehow I still turned out to be a wimp. I want to go camping and do outdoor things but I struggle when I'm there. I would rather hold my pee for 40 hours straight than crouch in the woods and urinate. Today, I was given a number of ears of corn from an obliging community garden (Thanks Dave) and as I stood over my sink pulling off the husks, I had this terrible anxiety about the bugs that could be residing inside. I had the same feeling you get when you try to open those biscuits in a can; you just peel and wait for the pop. Luckily, the bugs were wise enough to escape my notice. There were, however, several caterpillars in the bag which was transporting the rest of the corn. I gave the bag to my mom (payback).

So the question I ask myself is, what am I teaching my son with my wimpy ways? We didn't want him to be one of those kids that had an over-interest in bugs and would stick them in his mouth. But isn't there a nice medium? Mark suggested that I have gone the wrong way with Eli after I told him the following story. Yesterday, I discovered a new ant population in our house that seemed to be climbing into our kitchen from a hidden hole around the sliding doors. I loudly (though mildly) cursed their existence after I found them. Eli ran over to see what the problem was. I went to step on them but he quickly stopped me, warning me that these were friendly ants and they were just trying to find their families. So, in order to oblige his reasoning, I found a piece of paper and tried to relocate these nasty little things back outside (though when he wasn't looking I performed a mass murdering of all the poor little soldiers). I have a rule about bugs. Outside, I will not disturb you bugs, but if you dare to come inside my house, you will be executed (unless a toddler grants you asylum). I've tried to explain the rule to Eli but he is all or nothing. Either kill all bugs, outside and inside, or save them. I preferred the saving option after he went through a brief violent stage where he tried to smash every living thing he saw.

Will Eli look back on his childhood and blame me for his view of insects? Will he tell stories of saving earthworms from wet parking lots and ants from kitchens? Or will he somehow learn to be one of those fearless men who stand up and kill spiders and remove mice? If only I had valuable skills to pass on to him other than the proper use of "well" instead of "good", he might be in better shape. Thank God Mark is around to pick up my slack.