A few weeks ago, I took my kid to his swim class, and there was another mom in the change room with a kid around his age. The mom was exhausted and irritable and impatient, in ways I have also been, many times. Her kid wasn’t listening to her, and she was trying to be calm but it wasn’t really working, and eventually she resorted to shouting “I am SO TIRED” in a way that seemed 75% screamed into the void, and 25% actually directed at the child, as if it’s possible for an adult to communicate their own woes in a way that will make a child go “oh right, sorry. I’m making that worse, eh? Let me just change into my swimsuit and give you some space.”
Whenever I see parents behaving in this way I am caught between the twin feelings of extreme empathy (I’ve been there, have been that actual parent, am so familiar with those petty, irrational feelings and their aftermath, in which you feel so bad that you kind of wish you’d never been born, but that your perfect child had been born to some more competent person), and extreme determination to never, ever be that parent again (ha ha, that is a lofty goal that I have yet to reach).
When I voice some of these frustrations with myself, I get a lot of “you’re doing great” messages, and I deeply appreciate where they’re coming from, but folks, no. I’m really not always doing great, and it’s okay to admit that.
You weren’t there the night my kid wanted to play too many games before bedtime, and I took a hard line against any more fun, but instead of just gently holding a boundary I actually got mad about it and shouted, and he got really sad and said “I just wanted to have a nice night,” and then I felt like pure garbage. What exactly did I think I might win by not playing with him for an extra ten minutes? Ten minutes of peace and quiet? More like ten minutes of crying (him) followed by a week of guilt and regret (me).
I know how I could have handled the bedtime conflict differently, but I wasn’t able to in the moment. After it all blew up, I paused to take a few deep breaths, turned to him, and said “I’m sorry. Playing with you is my favourite thing in the world, and I don’t know why I said no and got upset. Can we start again, and I’ll say yes?” It’s okay to not do great, and it’s great to repair.
He ran into my lap and said “playing with you is my favourite thing too. That’s why I don’t want to go to school. I just want to be with you and dad all day.”
And then we hugged, and played a game where he pretends to be a monster in a lab, and I pretend to be the scientist who is observing the monster’s growth and evolution over a period of several days. It involves flashlights, and monsters escaping through the vent systems, and occasional tickle fights. Then we read four books, and I stayed in the bed with him, rubbing his back until he fell asleep. Bedtime took 90 minutes and ended at 10:30pm.
The next day, we went to our favourite local indie bookstore and he chose the very best stickers to buy. Later, I asked if he’d share one of the stickers with me, and he said “hmm … you can have the one about mental health.”
We are both doing great.
Omg, the mental health sticker feels like such a pointed sticker to offer, I love it. I, too, am very guilty of putting my foot down over stupid stuff, usually also along the lines of not doing something I could very easily do, which would be completely harmless and probably save us both some heartache. And I always feel terrible after. I'd say why do we do it, but I know why - because it's really hard to always be meeting someone else's needs and to feel like our own are being ignored (our own needs being, at times, to not play the same game again for the hundredth time). You are doing great, and that's why people say it, but sometimes we are doing great at fixing something we've just been really shitty about, which sort of cancels out the greatness, you know?