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Well, I mean, your kid is awfully nice too, but maybe mine is second only to your own?

I know, she is awfully cute and always so even-tempered. Her laugh is charming. She sleeps through the night! She eats well. And I just know that she loves me. Yeah, she’s the greatest.

Contrary to what you might think, this post will not be about all those crummy parents who shove their “great” kids in your face for you to fawn over. It is the confession of one of those crummy parents. Granted, I want other people’s approval in much more sneaky ways. I feign indifference at comments of “how cute” in line at the grocery because how could anyone dispute her cuteness?! I demur at compliments about her darling personality: “Is she always so smiley?” (Of course!)

It’s strange to take such pride in another person…especially one who has very few skills that I’ve taught them. She doesn’t do much of anything that she wouldn’t do if she were someone else’s kid. She crawls. She picks things up. She puts them down. She babbles. I didn’t directly teach her any of this stuff and I didn’t decide what she’d look like, so why am I secretly seeking approval from folks about how great she is?

I guess the answer is what is always is: because my life is all about me. I am the hero of this novel. I am the narrator. I am the controller of the inner monologue. I am omnipresent…in my own thoughts. So my daughter is a reflection of me and I want people to think she’s great mostly so that they’ll think I’m great. “You must be doing something right Katie!” Don’t I know it? By having this living thing that I “control,” I can show people how cool I really am. She’s like my own little Pac-Man walking around in the world. Yum cherries! I’m so good at this game!

If people think she’s great, then they must also think that I’m doing a good job. I know, I’m just so cool and collected about everything- amazing, right? And while I know that outside approval is a dangerous crutch, it just feels so good to get it! Ultimately, I think that my day-to-day existence does not need to be “liked” by 100 people in order to matter, but a little boost from a passer-by about how great my kid is feels like a pat on the back to me.

Isn’t my kid the greatest?! I know I am, thank you!

 

I wasn’t always anxious to be in the Mom Club. It was a little funny that I would weigh in on parental issues when I didn’t have a kid of my own, but I didn’t mind it if that meant I could sleep in until I was in my 30s. Then, the day arrived when I became a member of that very large group. I was a mom.

At first, I was anxious to see my own experiences reflected in the experiences of other moms. I wanted my own little world to be made bigger, but also to be validated by others. I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone. So I sought out mom friends (holla Mindful Mamas!), shared some of myself and felt steadier because of the communities that I had found.

But here comes the confession (you knew there had to be a ‘but’ coming): I am now cured of that initial pull to identify with other moms. This is not to say that I don’t want the mom friends that I have or other mom friends in the future! Friends! It is just to say that I don’t feel the need to connect with every other mom I see out for a walk with her kid simply because she’s a mom. She might be nice, but I probably don’t even want to make eye contact with her. I don’t want either of us to presume that we know what the other is going through just because we smile at one another.

I don’t want to hold my kid up for another mom to inspect. I don’t want to be on instantly “intimate terms” with other moms just because we both have kids. I don’t want to recount my daughter’s trials and triumphs to strangers and let them count her (non-existent) teeth. I don’t want to do the standard comparison of, “Is she crawling yet? Mine is scooting around the furniture already!” (Amazing! Babies doing baby things!) I don’t want the title of MOM to be in capital letters while every other role I own is forgotten. I don’t want to tell you my “birth story.” Meh. I want to heckle and make jokes.

Having people who vaguely understand your current life can be invaluable, but that doesn’t have to be EVERY PERSON YOU MEET. I’d like to save some self-disclosure and personal stuff until we’ve at least been on our 2nd date. So I’m sorry to say that if I don’t know you (or see some sort of kindred spirit within you), I’m not really interested in how old your kid is or what their favorite food is. Not a very MOM thing to say, I know.

So while I’m cool to be in the club, at the meetings I’ll just watch from the back of the room and then leave early to get a beer.

Last night, my daughter got her first taste of boxed macaroni and cheese. My husband jokingly said that it was the gateway drug to every chicken nugget, grilled cheese, plain pizza kid-food that she would ever eat. I laughed and watched her reaction to see if I could tell if she was instantly addicted to pasta. I was only a little bit worried that he was right.

This got me thinking about the idea of a magic moment that makes our kids picky or makes it impossible for them to go to sleep on their own. Whenever I have to do something extra to help my daughter with these “worrisome” tasks (like eating and sleeping), I find myself concerned that I’m creating a monster <RAH!>. But is there really one moment that creates picky-ness?

Must I entirely avoid certain foods to ensure that my daughter continues her vegetable eating life? Or will she get a taste of sugar one day and think, “Now that I know this exists, why would I ever eat anything green again?!”

Many parents who I’ve met through the years have already slid down that slippery slope. They find themselves having to accommodate kids who will only eat this or will only wear that. I’m sure that there was a beginning to this choosiness, but I would like to convince myself that it came about as a result of many decisions made along the way. I don’t think that letting her taste ice cream means that now she’ll only eat that. Right? Because the only way she can only eat ice cream is if that’s the only thing I give her.

It’s hard to stand up to kids who will not branch out and in some cases we don’t need to force them to do something different- like wear a different shirt to school (unless said shirt is so dirty as to be unwearable). But in other cases, it’s our job to help them be healthy and somewhat well-rounded. So we can’t allow them to entirely dictate what they will and won’t eat or when they will and won’t bathe. At the same time, we needn’t be afraid of allowing them to stay up a little late or eat some ice cream for fear of them demanding these things from us in the future. We help them make habits. And one fleeting taste of macaroni and cheese isn’t going to create a powdered cheese monster.

 

 

I self-identify as a selfish mom. I don’t know if there’s a club of like-minded moms out there or if I am an anomaly, but I try to confess this without too much pride or shame. I try to meet my daughter’s needs, but I also try to put myself first in most situations.

I’ve written about putting on my own oxygen mask first and a few months later, I think this idea still applies.

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One of the ways that parental love and devotion is measured in our American, middle-class world is in how much parents DO for their kids. We schedule play dates for our kids. We buy birthday presents for our kid’s classmates. We shuttle our kids to swimming camp, fencing lessons, Chinese tutoring and chess club. We make sure there are plenty of opportunities for learning experiences. All of this is great stuff! Who doesn’t want to know Chinese afterall? But all of it makes the “job” of parenting even more taxing.

In the same vein, if I am the family expert on everything, then I have instantly made my life harder by being the only one who knows where things are or how the baby is rocked “just so.” Ack!

But what’s the big deal with making our own lives harder? Isn’t that what being a parent is all about? Isn’t that parental love?

The first question for the over-scheduled family is: Is it more important for a child to have a head start in academics and activities OR is it more important that they have a less-stressed parent (and life)? When we add commotion to our own lives, we fill up our B.S. bucket more quickly every day. When it gets full, it spills on to whoever is near us- our kids, our partners, our friends. Making ourselves a little more crazy can inevitably make our kids feel that way too. They’ll start to feel always in a rush or always under pressure. Having felt those things as a grown-up, I would never want to hurry their introduction into childhood. Having a caring parent who takes an interest in their kid is more valuable than all the archery and music lessons in the world.

And for the parent who is the expert on family-life, your job is extra hard because you have to keep track of EVERYONE’S shoes, not just your own. You have to know what gear to pack into what bag on any given day. You have to know what child likes what food. You have to know whose chore it is to clear the table on Wednesdays. When you share your brain with so many other people, it’s difficult for you to keep any bits of it for yourself. This makes you the responsible party for everything kid related. If you always know where their shoes are, they won’t have to know where they are. If you always pack their bag, then they won’t have to know what to bring. You might think that you’re making your kid’s life better by making it easier, but they’re also being made a bit helpless by your ‘expertise.’

These are a couple of reasons that I’m going to try to watch out for me as much as I can as I continue down this parenting road. I am not planning on losing myself in my new role. I’m not planning on making my daughter’s life too easy by taking care of everything for her (even now, when she’s a baby). I’m not planning on forgetting the word “I.”

I know that plenty of this is easier said than done in the current parental landscape, but I’m going to try to remember that making my life harder isn’t necessarily going to be better for my kid.

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Another day dawns, sunny and bright! Birds are chirping, coffee is brewing and YOU…feel rested! It’s a dag gum miracle. Since you’ve had a good night’s sleep, you feel like you’re starting the day fresh. Ahh. Your two buckets are just as they should be at the start of the day: one is filled with patience and one is empty of the B.S. that was collected in it the day before. The object of today: don’t end up with an empty patience bucket and a full B.S. bucket. 

As one empties, the other fills. And if the end of the day finds you without any patience left and having had your fill of B.S., then the overflow from the yuck bucket will spill into the rest of your life. Your partner will feel it when they come home a little late. Your kids will feel it when they squabble over who can have the purple crayon. Your dog will feel it when she needs to go out while you’re in the middle of making dinner.

It’s a difficult thing to protect your daily amount of patience (which depending on the day, can start lower than we’d like). I’m not sure of the secret for making new patience throughout the day. My best bet at maintaining my patience is overestimating how long I will need it. I try to meter it so that it will last beyond my daughter going to bed, not just until my husband gets home. I attempt to conserve my patience so that I can do just about everything if I am called upon to do so. I find that if I am counting on relief and don’t get it, whatever is left in my patience bucket evaporates and my B.S. bucket quickly overflows (what a mess!).

It is difficult too to predict what trials and headaches will present themselves during your day to test your patience and raise your B.S. levels. Again, I don’t know how to keep one on the rise and the other at bay.  My thought is to keep an eye on how full each of your buckets is. It’s better to be aware of what’s coming than to be surprised when you reach the end of your patience bucket all of a sudden. Try to keep a little in reserve each day. And if you figure out how to turn B.S. into roses and rainbows, please let me know. I’d love to have the recipe.