Remind me why evolution has not eliminated guilt?

The post about the validity of leaving academia will have to wait as I am still contemplating its layout in my head, along with 12,000 other posts. In the mean time, I will mention that once again I must remind myself why I am doing this whole PhD with baby, instead of job that requires no brain power. I am reminding myself that I actually enjoy thinking, and that I could not be a stay at home mom. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with that choice, just it is a choice that I could not handle. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED being at home with the monkey while I was on leave, and I hate leaving him…but I also find he drives me freakin banana’s on most days. I find him exhausting with his energy and mentally boring. I remind myself of this today, because yesterday I got the dreaded call from the daycare saying the monkey had fallen and hit his head on the sidewalk, the concrete sidewalk. When I spoke to them on the phone they told me what happened, said that he was upset but that they’ve been monitoring him closely since it happened and he seems fine. He ate well and slept well also. Why had so much time passed between the incident and me actually speaking to someone? The beauty of not having a phone attached to my hip and not checking messages frequently. So this is the wave of emotions I felt, panic, relief, anger (how closely were you watching him?), and guilt. Why I feel guilty I have no idea. Its not like he doesn’t fall and hit his head on my watch, there is a reason he’s referred to as the monkey. Would it have been less traumatic to him if I were there? Probably not, when he falls off something, he usually cry’s more out of annoyance / frustration than pain. Once he done expressing his irritation with not being able to climb up particular stairs/ fence / window / chair he will proceed to attempt it again. Its not like I kill myself in the lab either, really I am writing a blog post once again instead of my proposal. Mind you I have planned a transfection / infection protocol to be carried out this week and did summarize the structure of protein X – now if only those notes would transform magically into a coherent paragraph. I think its more the general guilt of knowing I’m not one of those mums who wants to stay home with kids and actually enjoys it. I don’t know, I just know that guilt is a useless emotion - now if only my heart could be as logical as my head.