Sometimes as a parent, you wonder if you’ve gone wrong somewhere.
Just recently, I was accused (and I use the word intentionally) by one of my children of…being too positive.
That’s right. I have been parentally shamed by the fact that, in these exact words, “You are just too positive all the time and it’s annoying.” After that conversation (short-lived) I was reminded of a previous conversation with this same child.
Rewind to Christmas when I was talking about whom we could deliver goodies to and was suddenly told the following: “All you do is serve. Serve, serve, serve. That’s all you talk about.”
Back to this week. I thought of the two experiences and wondered, maybe it was just this particular child’s attitude #cantbeme
Then the other morning I’m just chilling with my 7 yo. I said maybe we should give something to the bus driver because she misses the kids and it’s likely hard for her right now.
He looked up at me and said with great annoyance …”Why do you give so much? You’re always giving. Why can’t you bake something and not give it away?” (Editor’s note: we always have a plate for us)
Let’s be clear. I don’t think I do any of those things of which I’m accused #feelingsalemwitchtrials I know women who genuinely serve constantly and I look at my sweet children and think, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW THE HALF OF IT. #orsomesuchkindresponse
Last week I started to wonder if I had gone awry in my parenting. Or if they’re just truly annoying children at this stage and don’t appreciate how good they have it? #thatmustbeit
But I took some time to consider what they were REALLY saying and realized that, in essence, it was “let us feel what we want and need to feel without a Mary Poppins solution and a plate of cookies to make the medicine go down.”
Got it.
AND, I’m a single mom dealing with three children who all have emotional, angsty rants throughout the days and if mama is gonna make it through a quarantine with herself and all three children functioning on the daily, we need some boundaries.
So, we had a family pow wow and talked through the hidden text. We listened, we validated, we snacked. And we came to a compromise…they are allowed their emotional, angsty rant. For ten minutes. After that, they’re welcome to use their many coping skills to deal with said angst, and put a little healthy emotional skin in the game.
During that ten minutes, I won’t offer happy words of encouragement and they won’t extend it with indulgent whining.
Happiness–generally–has returned. And though I took a stand that sometimes they won’t like how I parent #momispositivegetoverit that this is all part of the family petri dish of learning and loving #andicantwaituntiltheyareparents.
