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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how circumstance can derail all my best intentions. To put it more bluntly, how easy it is to lose control of my parenting when change and stress enter the mix. In our case, my husband got his dream job — in another city, of course. What that’s meant to my family is long periods without him. Among the many implications of this change for me (both exciting and not) is the fact that I’ve lost my enforcer, the one who takes a turn at every necessary chore from lunch-packing to time-outing. It’s all me, all the time.

And we’re all learning a lot. Oh boy. The biggest lessons are that mom is so not perfect, that she can be provoked to screaming and even crying, and that kids need to take on some of the work of their own care before our family implodes. Actually, not bad lessons if we can keep me from eroding their trust completely. Luckily, I don’t seem to have a character-assassination gene, and hitting wouldn’t occur to me. But I struggle with not being able to walk around the block if I start to get angry, with not being able to hand them off if I’m, for example, violently ill.

We’re lucky because, due to our Daddy’s working, we can afford a regular babysitter. I have taken my girls to counseling once or twice, so we can all get support. We’ll get through this, and in some way we’ll all benefit. For me, as so many times since I had children, the process of growing up leaves me aching but also glad that I can keep growing at my age.

What occurs to me often, though, is how harshly I might have judged other parents in the past. I think I can feel now how easily a mom or dad can slip over the edge into an abyss of force and manipulation — that edge feels awfully close when I’m really stressed. Looking down the barrel of unremitting, thankless responsibility, any of us can start to lose it. I see that now.

I think in the future I’ll have a bit more compassion for that screaming mom in the park, that pushy dad in the grocery line. This is a tough job, especially when things aren’t perfect, when change, loss, or stress come into it. I think a lot about all those parents who have a partner in Iraq. Imagine that, imagine not knowing that your kids’ parent is necessarily coming home at all. Imagine all those moms and dads who are Iraqi. Sort of makes my loneliness and anxiety seem a bit silly. And I’ll try to hang on to that thought next time my two angels decide to play the limits-testing game, or I get the news that the weekend trip Daddy promised isn’t happening after all, and I don’t know where my youngest is going to Kindergarten in the fall. She will go to Kindergarten. She will get her father back. We’ll all survive. Breathe.

Posted on April 20th, 2006 by MomStar
Filed under: Uncategorized, Mommy Mishaps