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The Parenting Tip that kids don’t want you to know

  • Pics from our very indulgent vacation we just got back from…
“G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S!… Oh, the flossy flossy” – Fergie

My children and us were having a conversation last night. We were saying that when they have kids, we will be that child’s grandparent and we will be able to say “you did that when you were a kid” when they complain to us about things. Oscar stated he would be a better parent than us. I said “are we not good parents” to which he replied “yes, but I’ll be better”. I asked what he would do differently and finally, after some coaxing since he knew I was slightly offended, he came up with “I would let them do more things they wanted to”. That’s when I decided to let them in on a little life secret.

These things.

I turned to him and said “I’m going to let you know about a super secret parenting fact that, for some reason, parents don’t usually tell their kids. I love you guys more than ANYTHING in the world and nothing, I mean NOTHING makes be happier than seeing you guys happy. But, as a parent, it’s my job to make sure you guys turn out to be good people and respectable adults. If I were to give you everything you want, which I WANT to, you would expect everyone and the world to treat you the same way. You would be one of those awful people who only think about themselves and are spoiled and get super mad when things don’t go their way. I want you all to be loving, giving, compassionate people and sometimes that means dealing with not getting everything you want. In the real world, you’ll go into a job and be expected to get things done in a timely manner – including getting your shoes on – and if you don’t, you’ll get fired. The other reason is that you are children and I’m an adult with almost 40 years of experience and I know outcomes of some of the things you think you want. I have to keep you protected from hurting yourselves or being unhealthy”

Perhaps a too indulgent breakfast everyday, but on vacation, it was amazing!

Parenting is SO hard and not just because you’re exhausted from being a servant to three little piglets (to a certain age) or trying to wrap your brain around the decisions their little primordial brains make, but mostly trying to decide what you should take care of and what you should not. If parenting were just being a servant to a demanding little idiot, it would be tiring, frustrating, hair pulling, but I think what makes parenting harder on the next level is allowing them to make that decision you would have stopped and letting them learn why it was stupid. A good parent knows that the best way to learn is to experience it yourself, but it’s SO hard to sit there and comfort the tears that you could easily fix, but stop yourself for the lesson learned.

Some lessons are better learned by telling though, not experiencing.

Once, Oscar wanted a watch SOOOOO bad – he picked it out – it was a Pokemon watch (like $10 ) and he loved it! One day he came home crying because he had lost it at school. He had taken it off to wash his hands in the bathroom and left it and when he came back, it was gone. Oscar is my most sensitive child and I love that about him, so watching him cry over this was heart wrenching. All I wanted to do was grab my keys and run out right then and replace it for him. But instead I had to hold him and explain about responsibility and loss while he cried even harder that I wouldn’t get him a new one, ripping my heart in two.

Pandora – Disney

Losing something as small (not in his mind) as a $10 watch that he’d had for a whopping 2 weeks is a much preferred lesson on loss than other things he could and will lose in his life and dealing with loss is a very important lesson in life – processing the emotions and the grief and acceptance, learning lessons from what could have been done differently – slowly builds an emotional maturity ready to better handle the world. Hopefully, now when he’s 30 and his favorite coffee mug breaks, he’ll be sad, but he won’t fall on the floor and think the world has come to an end or worse, scream at his child for knocking off the counter.

Hippo at Disney

So, kids, just know that we are bound by our duty to make you into decent adults and even though we’d love nothing more than to stop your tears with new things and watch your faces light up, we have to make hard decisions about what we can indulge you with and what just needs to be a life lesson. And thanks to this lesson, my kids are very familiar with the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What you Want”

Introducing these adults – starting in 2030
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“I am nothing, I am nobody, I am trash”

So, things aren’t always sunshine and rainbows and learning to navigate that can be challenging. Even though my life is pretty damn good, I still have rough patches where I cannot see or appreciate that. Just like a diabetic forgetting insulin and going into a ketoacidotic crisis, a person on certain medications for mental illness skipping doses can cause a different sort of crisis. One night, when I had run out of my antidepressant/anxiety medication the night before, (my fault) I was increasingly irritable, everything set me off and finally I just went to bed because I was in such a dark place all I wanted to do was cry. As I lay in bed, crying and trying to talk myself out of going and getting a knife and opening a vein – mostly for the sanity of my kids not having a mother or having one who took her own life – I started telling myself “I am nothing, I am nobody, I am trash” and oddly enough, I actually felt better. I just kept chanting it until my crying stopped and I fell asleep. The next few days, even though I started my drugs back again, every time I felt anxious, upset, not good enough, frustrated with whatever situation, I would just say that to myself and I calmed down. But why?

I posted it on a vet mom’s group and asked why that would make me feel better. I got some good answers, and they may all be correct, but this is what they said:

  1. Maybe it’s because we put so much pressure on ourselves to be everything to everyone that once you step back and acknowledge that you really aren’t that important, it’s almost a relief. Between my kids, my husband, my family, my clients, co-workers, bosses, friends, random social media critics/fans, etc, I try to be all I can be and it sometimes gets me so irritable that they still aren’t happy with me. I think when I can step back and remember that I’m not that important to them, I can take the pressure off of myself for not making them completely happy. Like, if I think about how I go home overwhelmed and upset about an interaction I’ve had with them, then think about how they probably aren’t thinking about me and I haven’t ruined their life, maybe I, too, can forget about it.
  2. I’m telling myself this to reaffirm the inner demon that tells me I’m not good enough. This one is a little darker and may have some truth to it, but normally when I’m diving headlong into a self sabotaging spiral, I feel worse and worse. Repeating the phrase here, though, made me feel better. Like, tears drying, wrenching gut relaxing, better.
  3. Maybe I just have too much self importance. I mean, don’t we all a little? Because you’re you and you live from your point of view, that MUST mean you’re meant for something big. You will have a great affect on the world. God wants you for something spectacular! But maybe I am just nobody. I had a friend once tell me that not everyone can be SOMEONE. Sometimes God just needs fillers or pawns or placeholders or just fluff. Which, definitely, at it’s heart is disheartening. But, at some point, maybe it’s a little bit of a relief to know you maybe don’t have THAT much responsibility in the world. Like, I love just working as an employee, especially when I see what my employers have to deal with on a daily basis. Maybe I’m okay with being nobody, nothing. (Okay, “trash” MAY be taking it too far and feeding my demons)

So, in conclusion: DON’T SKIP YOUR MEDS (check now to make sure you’re not about to run out). And maybe it’s okay to take some pressure off yourself. I know we all feel like we have to be the best at our job, the best looking companion for your spouse, the best and most devoted parent, on top of brushing your dog or cat’s teeth, keeping your house spotless and your kids bathed more than once weekly (who me?), and to ALWAYS treat others with patience and grace. But, one day, our gravesites (if you’ll have one) will be just some words on a stone and no one will know who you are or were (unless you were someone SUPER special) or whether you were nice to that one person that one day when you were exhausted and bitter. Forgive yourself, you’re really not anyone special (and that’s okay).