Momma Mouse and Me

When my son was about nineteen years old, they decided to go for a run in Central Park at about 9:30 at night. My fingers knitted together and my brow was close behind.
“Running? Now? It’s 9:30.” I said.
My son looked at me with a gently benevolent and only slightly patronizing expression, “Mom, I’m six feet tall, it’ll be fine.”
So they left. And I got ready for bed. And fell asleep the way mothers do — with one ear open waiting for them to come home. Which they did, of course. But it got me thinking about motherhood and the demon of worry that we seem to give birth to at the same time that our children come out of the womb.
I wonder if animals worry about their young? That weekend, I was out in the country with a group of good friends. Two of us went out to the barn to retrieve a barrel we needed. It was covered in insulation which, when removed, revealed a frantic field mouse who promptly jumped out and ran away. We were about to move the container when my friend said, “Oops, there are babies.” Sure enough there were little baby mice mewling quietly and searching blindly for their mother who had run away. We replaced the insulation to ensure that momma could get back if she wanted to. I wondered if she would? Was she simply trying to deflect our attention or was she abandoning her babies to save herself? Although I don’t know much about the nature of small mammals, I suspect she was hoping that if we were predators we would come after her and leave her babies alone.
I saw a bluebird do the same thing as the mouse, although she stayed closer by her chicks. We were trying to get a peek at her newly hatched babies and she flew down to the lawn, fluttering as if she’d hurt her wing, trying to detract our attention away from her babies. I think it was her version of knitting her brow and twisting her fingers in dismay.
Does what the momma mouse and bluebird did constitute worry? Or at least its instinctive counterpart? Maybe worrying is a genetic pre-programming that protects the species.
Some might argue that it’s different for humans — after all, once the baby mice or birds grow up, their respective mothers probably don’t give them another thought — out of sight, out of mind. That’s kind of true for humans too, though. I know I worried far less about my son when they were away at college than I do when they’re living here in the same city as I am.
I’m not sure what any of this teaches us — either about ourselves or about animals — other than the fact that worry, at least, seems to be part of our nature once we become parents.
