Cheryl Murfin - The Best Mother She Ever Had 

 

I work with new parents, brand spanking new parents who are very tired. Are there any new parents out here or parents, parents in general who've gone through this? Okay. You know what I mean? [audience applause]

 

When you have a new baby, it's a form of insanity. You're up all night, you're tired, your boobs leak if you're the mom. [audience laughter] And so, one of the benefits of my job or one of the things that happens with my job is I'll often get calls or texts from new parents. Usually, it's a new mom and she'll tell me some catastrophic thing that has happened, “Oh, my God, I forgot to change the baby's diaper in the middle of the night and she probably has diaper rash,” or “Oh, my God, the baby fell off the bed.” Most recent one I got yesterday was, “The baby is looking at me skeptically.” [audience laughter] 

 

And so, every time this happens, I get to reassure the new parents, “You know, you are the best mom this baby ever had,” which is true. And that makes them feel better. And then, I'll follow up with a story and I'll say, “You know what? I'm going to tell you something that's going to make you feel really good about your parenting, because you really are the best parent your baby ever had.” I tell them a story about when I had my baby 22, 23 years ago, I was one of those very tired moms and I didn't listen to my midwife when she told me I should stay in bed with my baby for a week and not do anything else. I should not get up. I should not go shopping or anything like that. I decided that on the fourth day after my baby was born that I needed to go grocery shopping. Even though my mother was there, she'd gone grocery shopping and she'd rearranged my linens and the closets and everything, I decided I needed to go grocery shopping. 

 

Now, as somebody who's in the birth field, I know that it was my hormones going up and down that caused me to want to go shopping. But I did. I packed my baby up in the car seat, and I put her in the car, and we drove off to the grocery store, and we went through the grocery store aisles, and everybody oohed and aahed at the baby and I thought that was great. We got through the checkout line, and back out into the parking lot, and I put all the groceries into the car and I drove off. I put on some music, and about 10 minutes later, I realized the baby wasn't in the car. 

 

So, you can imagine with a little bit of panic, I did an illegal U-turn over four lanes of traffic and gunned it back to the parking lot. When I looked, there were tire marks because I came screeching around into the parking lot, and I came to a stop and I just looked out of the window of my car. I'm hysterical. There's a circle of people all around. I can't see the baby, but there's a circle of people. I get out of the car, and I'm shaking and I'm crying, and I walk over to the circle and it breaks open. There's the baby looking happy as a clam in her little car seat, googling up, and standing over her is a rather large, elderly police officer. And I thought, oh, my God, I'm going to be taken away. I'm going to be arrested. She's going to call CPS. 

 

She looked at me and she said, “Is this your first baby?” And I said [onomatopoeia] and so, she picked up the baby carrier and she walked over to me, the police officer, and she put the baby carrier in my hand and she said, “I'm going to walk you to your car.” She walked me to my car. She made sure the car seat was adjusted right in the car. And then, she said, “I'm going to follow you home.” And I said, “Okay.” So, she followed me home, and I'm hysterical. I drove very slowly all the way home. [audience laughter] We got home. She came into the house and made sure that it was my home and there was a place for the baby [audience laughter] and walked down to the door. I was terrified she was going to call CPS, and then I was terrified about what I was going to say to my husband. 

 

I think she must have been maybe 60. She looked like she was close to retirement. She took my hand at the door and she said, “I want you to know I'm not going to call CPS and I'm not going to call your husband.” I broke down in tears, and I said, “Oh, thank you so much. Is there anything I can do? Can I call your commanding officer and just say thank you?” And she said, “No, I don't think that's a good idea.” [audience laughter] She said, “But there's something that you can do. Someday you're going to meet another parent or another young mom who's having a really hard day, and you're going to be able to tell that person they're really doing okay, that you know what, that worst things could happen because you're going to be able to tell them that you have won the worst mother in the world award.” [audience laughter] 

 

And so, I get to share that story with every new parent that texts me about her baby rolling off onto the bed or all these things. And then, I get to follow up and tell them that babies are resilient and new parents are resilient and that they're going to be just fine. So, thank you.