Tell me what I want to hear

I am out of town this week and while I have tried to call home daily to talk to my girls, I didn't make it today.  I didn't even get to my hotel room until 8:00.  My girls go to bed at 7:00.  I just hung up the phone with Bradly and made a point to ask "They didn't miss me did they?"  Courteously (and probably honestly), Brad answered no.  It got me thinking about a powerful maternal skill that was obviously born of necessity in the absence of our children.  I think they call it ignorance.  Not ignorance as in dumb, but ignorance as in don't ask, don't tell.  Interestingly today I heard two other similar stories from mothers.  Early this morning, a state legislator was providing insight to being in politics while raising children.  While her kids are grown and largely out of the house she suggested that sometimes you don't want to know what they are doing.  You work hard to raise good productive adults (note we do not raise children, we raise adults) and then you have to step away.  She advised that you do not want to know everything.  Later, I was talking to a professional woman who once lamented that she would miss some of her daughters' early milestones when she returned to work after giving birth.  Her childcare provider lovingly reassured her that "no firsts happen here."  I am not sure fathers have this same need, but as a mother I am grateful sometimes for what I do not know.