I have several great groups of women to check in with when parenting becomes too tricky for me. And parenting becomes too tricky for me several times a week. Well, not get-help tricky that often, but maybe quarterly I stumble over a new terribleness that makes me want to quit and let the kids raise themselves somewhere else, far, far, away.
Yesterday was one of those days, when their father and I (doesn't that sound so serious?!) finally agreed at the same moment in the same way with the same commitment that we were done. D. O. N. E. done with a particular behaviour in both of our children. There was quiet rage out in public, a deafening ragey silence on the car ride home, and then the controlled whispered promise of everything changing as of now and this will not be and we are dead serious.
Probably not everything was different this morning. But I was. I enforced boundaries and repeated expectations and just generally didn't take any shit. It was a rough go. But I got both people off to school and got home with enough time to track down my people before having to go pick them up and start it all up again.
This time I chose my online people at Moxie. If you've ever asked me anything about parenting ever, you've been given the link to her site (www.askmoxie.org). There is a facebook page too, and so I posted there my query about this quarter's dilemma. Paricularly I asked, what do we do when we realized that we have done or not done things that have resulted in undesireable consequences and now need to change everything because it can not be and damnit, we're dead serious about it?! when this isn't "just a stage" but actually just what happens when we do something poorly?
Almost every single response included some version of, "But it's probably just a stage." Several mentioned having limits and boundaries to enforce even within the phase ("Just because your brain is doing something new doesn't mean you can just flip the fuck out when your socks feel funny. When things don't feel right we can say with our words, these socks feel funny, but we can not punch mummy in the eye."). None mentioned admitting a mistake and trying to learn something new. No one said anything about how sometimes kids' grossness is directly attributable to something their parents have done.
Maybe it's my Lent hangover talking, but sometimes we're sinful folk, you know? Sometimes we get shit wrong. And when we do, there are, in the words of every touchy-feely parenting book you'll ever read, natural consequences. And sometimes those consequences are super-duper awful behaviours in the people you're doing wrong by.
I'm not beating myself up over this. Eighty percent of the time, we're doing an amazing job of parenting. My kids are often lovely and hilarious and well-mannered and bright and kind and all manner of other good things. But 20% of the time? Holy shit! What a mess!
Self-loathing is not good or right. Admission of sin and confession of errors is kind of awesome. It makes room for some growing to happen, and it makes room for things to change. Because if it's my fault my children can't ask for milk without whining and crying Every. Single. Time. that means it's probable that I can do something that will change that.
My fault. My mistake. My bad.
1 comment:
Ok. Does this hit home. My daughter has suddenly (well for the last 2-4 weeks) been a whiney, crying girl about EVERYTHING. I've been constantly going back and forth about "it's a stage" and "it's my fault". I think it's because, like your kids, she is so good (and fairly easy) 80-90% that these times feel miserable. Like I actually have to parent. No big revelations, just "right there with ya sista!"
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