I sometimes wonder why I divulge so much information here. In part, it’s a Public Service Announcement – my admitting my failures as a parent helps others feel less bad and that makes me feel helpful – but it’s also a form of therapy. I can write myself a pretty new picture of the way things are going. Or not. I can tell the truth about how hard things are and know that eventually they’ll change – change and then land right back where we started. Forward and backward and so on, never feeling quite like I’m gaining much ground.
When I read the blog posts that make the rounds, written by earnest women who tell us not to feel bad about our less than stellar parenting, I feel irritated even though I know they’re well-intended. My problems go so far beyond whether or not I make myself presentable to the world. They’re so much worse than feeding my kids breakfast for dinner or letting them live on toast. Mine go to screaming and cursing when I end up in a bad place. I clear the surfaces of tables in fits of fury. I act like a complete fool and do everything I thought I would never ever do as a mom. I know I am not alone but that isn’t much solace. Friends I have throw things too, and yell. I am not the only one to use bad language. A few weeks ago the big joke in our house was Violet saying “Where the hell are my fucking underwear?”, mimicking some version of something I had said at an earlier time. It was funny but it isn’t and I am making a big effort to stop with the foul language. It’s so very unpleasant, but at least my kids don’t use bad words in normal conversation. My assorted parents cursed a lot and we did too. My brother, who had some dyslexia as a child, was caught as a result of the jumbling of letters, having written “FKCU” on the black board as a young boy. His name is Ralph, like my son, and he spelled it RPLAH. We still call him Rplah now and then.
Last night after a screamfest which followed my attempts to get my kids to do their homework over the course of FOUR hours we were lying in bed. I started to calmly talk, yet again, about what absolutely has to change around here. Violet said “You’re all out of rope.” I asked her what she meant and she said “You know the expression ‘at the end of your rope?’, well you have none left.” That’s for sure, my smart girl. This week I’ve taken to hiding myself in my room and going to sleep at dinner time. Not great parenting but at least I’m not getting sloshed or taking drugs. At least I’m not leaving my kids alone in the apartment. I admit all of this to our family therapist who reassures me that I am not evil and bad, pointing out what I just said about drugs and alcohol and not leaving the house. He holds me to such high standards! He gently tries to get me to work with the positive instead of the negative but that’s just not second-nature to me and I forget time after time. “You just lost a Christmas present with that behavior!” “No dessert for you tonight!” and so on. Tonight I started in on them again but then caught myself. “No show tonight because 1. it’s a school night and 2. our morning was hell. We all behaved badly.” Then… “Shows and dessert and Christmas trees are rewards for good behavior! Let’s see if we can all try harder over the next couple of days so we can get a tree!” and “I don’t get dessert either because I behaved very badly this morning and hate what I said and did to you.” Little did they know I had a tiramisu before picking them up. And then an ice cream sandwich. A mom has to get by. In any case, they did listen for the first time in weeks. I still had to put one on a break for punching the other as we were entering the house but after ten minutes alone the circuits were rewired and we had a passably okay time. It helps when I can get it up to use a perky voice and sentences that end in happy explanation points. Ugh.
So right there with you tonight. I completely lost it after dinner tonight — Ma’ayan was throwing a tantrum and I just couldn’t deal. At bedtime, I apologized for all the yelling and said to Ma’ayan, “Let’s try to have a day tomorrow in which neither of us does any yelling. Do you think we can do that?” She looked at me calmly and said, “No.” I couldn’t decide whether it was funny in its honesty or a sad statement about our family.
Oh, that makes me smile and feel so much better. That’s just what my girl would have said. I think it was funny in its honesty.
Jen it is so hard. Yesterday I felt for the first time an urge to go on FB and post something to the hell with it all, I can’t do it anymore, but of course I posted pictures about my cutsie cooking instead, that the kids wouldn’t touch with a stick, but my ego got a boost. Oh well. Pizza night offer still out there, tonight or any other.
I drove cross-country, South Carolina to Montana and back, one summer, the only adult with my four children 11, 10, 7 and 4, and left them with memories not only of the big McDonalds-like arch in St. Louis, and the moonscape of North Dakota, but of me screaming and crying, and once lying to a policeman about why I was speeding. Don’t even ask. Shortly before the same trip the second summer, I came up with what I thought was an inspired example of rewarding good behavior. I bought a big roll of tickets, the kind you get at the fair, and each morning, before we started out, each kid got ten tickets. The rule was that if I had to ask someone to stop doing something, or to do something else, more than once, a ticket was forfeited. The tickets that were left at the end of the day could be traded for special privileges, candy or an extra 15 minutes in the hotel pool, for example. The plan seemed to be working pretty well, and I was giving myself a big thumbs-up for my parenting, when David,12, began to rag Ella, 11, in the way that only a slightly older brother can. I issued by warning, which did no good, and was preparing to take a ticket from David when Ella tapped me on the shoulder and handed me two of her tickets. Then she turned and punched David right in the nose. He immediately began to howl, “Did you see what she did?”, and I could only reply, “Well, yeah, but she already paid for it.”
I love Ella paying in advance of punching her brother in the nose! How wonderful! I think I will try the tickets too… and hope my kids aren’t that smart.
I have so much to say about Jen’s post here– But Nona, I think that is the single best idea anyone has ever had– the tickets. Brilliant. I recognize that perhaps it didn’t work out quite the way you wanted it to,but at least SHE KNEW she was going to have to pay for it. It was pre-meditaed and NOT involuntary.I find this warming. Maybe she would have thought twice if there had been a particular thing she was looking forward to getting…. maybe not, but man, it’s a start, right? I am going out and buying tickets RIGHT NOW!!
These posts you write are so great, Jen. They really are therapeutic– it;s a bit like being in a group therapy session with a really cool, honest moderator and a bunch of like minded women/ men(?). Its a serious service you’ve set up. And THAT is why I am always so afraid to read them. Because they are so inspiring, and I find myself revving up and wanting to read them all and make comments and then later write my own (whichI know is what you think we should be doing) and that kind of passion and commitment scares me. I’m not sure if that makes sense to you. But I swear to get that your blog posts are so inspirational on so many levels. Isn’t that funny? That your posts about questioning your motherhood and sanity could create so much energy and excitingment in a reader. This reader. It’s all I would ever do, read, respond, repeat. Read respond, repeat. All I would ever do. I’m not sure I am ready to be as productive as all that.
Thank you so much for this post, and all the others. What you write, and the way you write it/ them– it’s like their synergistic. Creating in me– and I can only imagine in others of your readers, this feeling of hope and humor and community.
All my grandest gratitude.
xxcath