Jun
5
Everything about parenting older children is, in my personal experience, superior to parenting babies and toddlers … except one thing. Well, maybe two things: I am getting super sick of all the sports-related comings and goings and camp-chair-sittings and beautiful-Saturday-hosings. And also I am inexplicably way more grossed out by an underwear skidmark than I ever was by a fully loaded diaper. Plus there’s the astronomical expense of milk and cereal, I swear to god half my paychecks go to —
Anyway. Maybe there are a few things that were preferable back when the boys were pint-sized, mush-mouthed, dimple-elbow’d sniglets, but overall, I’m much happier parenting older children. There’s one particular newish aspect that really kind of sucks, though, and that’s the uncomfortable-to-confess feeling of truly disliking my kids.
Hold up: I don’t mean all the time, obviously. I’m talking about the occasional moment of frustration that’s the result of something that comes from a different place than those early years of OH MY GOD WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP or THAT NOISE YOU’RE MAKING IS BORING A HOLE THROUGH MY SKULL.
They’re people now, you know? Little people who don’t necessarily understand the impact of their words, sure, but they have personalities and they’re smart and articulate and the things they say sometimes make me feel like I’m living with a roommate who’s really kind of an insufferable asshole sometimes.
Take for instance what Riley said a few days ago when asked if he wanted to spend a Friday night at the cabin:
“Mehhhhh. The cabin doesn’t even have anything to do. There’s no stores around there, just the market across the street. And we don’t even own that much property.”
Setting aside the little factoid that the cabin belongs to JB’s parents, not us, and setting aside his maddening choice to conveniently forget every single thing about the cabin that makes it a goddamned magical childhood wonderland, where the HELL does this Rich Kids of Instagram get off bitching about how there’s not enough, like, acreage?
Ahem. What I’m saying is in that moment, I wasn’t just irritated with him, my brain was all, Dude. I don’t like you. Go to your room until I like you again. Maybe come out in a day or two.
That was sort of a throwaway complaint for which Riley was thoroughly schooled on the Fine Art of Appreciating Your Fucking Blessings (I’m guessing he won’t be whining about how our use-it-virtually-anytime river retreat isn’t fancy enough again anytime soon), but you get my meaning, right? When they’re little and they’re being obnoxious, you know their brains are basically a roiling mass of developing neural connections, so it’s forgivable that they suck sometimes. When they’re older, and they do things like tell you they like Daddy better than you (thanks, Dylan) or that they don’t want you to come on an outing (thanks again, Dylan), or that they would be so sad if Daddy was eaten by a shark but only a little sad if you were eaten by a shark (what the hell, Dylan), it’s just … a lot harder to get over it. In my experience.
It’s like when babies start growing up and their affections mean more because they’re deliberate. Like that, only the opposite.
But of course we do get over it, because parenthood is about unconditional love. It’s also about being the grownup and dealing with those moments, both externally and internally, and getting past any lingering resentments or wasted learning opportunities. Now that they’re bigger, it’s so much more than it used to be, really — deeper connections, bigger repercussions, stronger feelings.
It’s easier but it’s not. It’s better but it’s harder. It’s far more fun … but there are more murky confrontations that reveal the gap between the mother I want to be and the person I am.
God, growing a family is just such a wild and messy business. Things in them are tangled with things in me and it’s awesome and hurtful and crazymaking and beautiful, all at once.
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Thank you. Once again, you have stepped into my head, looked around and said exactly what I’m feeling, but oh, soooo much better than I could have ever said it. I cannot tell you how much better I feel knowing I’m not alone.
When I was in high school, I remember my dad telling me, very clearly, that while he would always love me, he didn’t always like me.
He said it with charm and love, but his point – which OMG WE DISCUSSED AT LENGTH I GET IT DAD GOD – that his role as a parent would mean that he would always love me unconditionally, I still had a responsibility to try and not be an asshole. It was a light bulb moment for me – I had not really thought about my behavior in those terms, that I couldn’t just take for granted the family would just take my shit. And that’s another part of growing up, as I see it – moving from a being that everyone is working hard to ensure stays alive and is functional to a person who has a responsibility for how they are. My dad was nicely pointing out that if I was acting like a spoiled brat, well, that might be a result of his parenting, but I still had to figure out how to circumnavigate the impulse. I was old enough that it wasn’t his fault anymore, how I was.
(I had a boyfriend helpfully remind me of this general idea – much later- but he phrased it as “if you want to be loved, be lovable.” Also good advice, I’ve found)
Thanks. Now I don’t feel like such a douchebag mother. I’m so happy I’m not alone. Any three day weekend, I’m ready to put my 2.5 yo out to the curb on Sunday afternoon and put a free sign on her. By the end of the first day back to work, I can’t wait to get her from school and pick her up and kiss her. Then again last night when she was splashing me from the tub (I was wetter than her and she was sitting in the water), I just about took out the free sign again. When is it again that they listen? Never, oh that’s right.
My kid is 21 and home from school for the summer. 98% of the time he is pretty cool and nice, and other times he is a total asshole, and I find myself giving him double fingers as he stomps away. This is normal.
It’s been a while since I dropped-in to tell you that I love you. So there it is. Also, if you were eaten by a shark, I’d be a lot sad.
And then somewhere along the way they morph into teenagers…and you throw hormones and teen-age drama into the mix!! That’s a whole new bottle of emotions. As LiZScott said that her dad told her, “I will always love you, but at times he really didn’t like her”…been there done that with mine too! Most of the time mine are pretty good kids and are growing into fine young adults, but I so understand where you are coming from Linda. Thank goodness the walls of the garage can’t repeat what I say when I go out there to vent to myself! I can’t wait to read your posts in a few years from now!
LizScott said what I was thinking. When one of us is being a jerk, my husband and I will tell each other, “I will always love you, but I really don’t like you right now.” I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to understand that.
She kicks her 18mo brother, causing him to fall over. I tell her she needs to be gentler because he’s still learning the coordination it takes to not get hurt from rough housing like that. She says, “Yeah, so? Go away. You’re annoying me.” I take away tv privileges and she starts crying. “You don’t love me. I didn’t do anything.” I remind her that her brother got hurt because of her. Of course, he is no longer crying because she and I have been arguing for 10 minutes now and she points it out, arguing that she’s now getting in trouble for something he isn’t even upset about. ARGH. She is 4 years old.
I’d like to borrow Sande’s free sign.
I told my 13-year-old daughter to stop acting like such a bitch the other day. It fell out of my mouth, it really did. But she WAS. Like a grown-up, opinionated, snotty, entitled, ungrateful… bitch. Yeah, I feel ya.
And I will add that 99% of the time my daughter and I are as close to best friends as two people can be when the one who used to wipe the other’s butt can take away all the other’s technology privileges in cases of misbehavior.
It’s all hard. I sometimes envy you because I think I’m much better with babies, when you just get them what they want, which is generally a boob in the gob; but these big kids, with all the saying no and the having to be hard-line, I hate that. But it’s hard because it’s good, and it’s good because it’s hard, ya know?
What a beautiful post and it totally resonated with me….I was brought back to the time when my almost 18 year old son – then about 7, told me how excited he was for my husband to come to his classroom because, you know, he edited a newspaper and did all of these cool things and *I* (me, his mom who supported his dad through times when he was making noooo money at the newspaper) only did things like “pour juice”… we laugh now, but OMFG. I got over it and we use the phrase “pour juice” for many occasions but that is the nature of kids and I love how you described it as a “rolling mass of neural connections.”
“Where the HELL does this Rich Kids of Instagram get off bitching about how there’s not enough, like, acreage?” LOLZ!! How awkward must that be when kids pop off with opinions that go against what you’re teaching them? You are such a great mom and a hilarious writer!
This is one subject I feel I can help you on with out being an ass myself, since the two kids I have are still growing in my belly. (5 1/2 months along)
When I was six, my father died, and I was very much a daddy’s girl. I don’t remember much of my mom from when i was smaller but i remember doing things with him, because he was sick and at home. He died at the age of 29, and my mom was 26… she both worked and took care of me and the house and cottage we had as well as the boat..
I had no idea the work it took to do all she did but as an adult i can appreciate how much she did for me to try ad make life as smooth as possible. But still I was an asshole child, and one day when i was mad at her for something stupid – who knows what, i turned and looked at her and said “I wish you died instead of daddy”. I hurt her feeling pretty badly, and had no clue the kind of damage I did or the level of hurt I caused. As an adult – I don’t even remember saying it, my grandmother told me I did it a few years ago, and I felt like the shit that I was then…
As kids we are not thinking about repercussions, we just say what pops in to our minds because we feel we can say what ever to those we love and they will just get it. I know sometime in the future I will also have to deal with this and will probably be hurt too, and that is when my mom will have the satisfaction of knowing I finally know how it feels to have the child you love rip your heart out and show it to you. (Dang she gets it double since it is twins)
But as an adult, please know i never meant it seriously it was jus a moment of verbal vomit i couldn’t control, and I am sure Riley and Dylan are the same. We don’t mean it really and we won’t remember it 2 hours later. When she sold the cottage and boat and worried about the impact.. again, was never a big deal to me. As adults I hope and pray that the decisions we make for our children don’t impact them in a harmful way, but I think we also worry too much sometimes. As a kid, i just went with it and moved on..
Remind me of this when I get the verbal vomit in the future… ok?
In April of 2011, when our town and surrounding areas were demolished by the worst tornado outbreak north Alabama had ever seen, Bryan and I packed up Tony and headed north. All cell towers were destroyed and no one had any power, but we had to find out if Jack was okay at his mom’s house. We waited in line for two hours to get gas to get up there, and we agreed to take him and drive to Chattanooga until power was restored. I had worked a mountain of overtime on a proposal, so the cards fell in a way that we could.
In order to make it more like a vacation and less like a refugee trip, we visited every tourist attraction up there. We reveled in a/c and automated ice dispensers. And Jack complained the ENTIRE time. He was so downright snotty and rude that I still get upset thinking about it.
He just turned 13 last week and the good news is that it gets better. They at least start to realize the weight of their words, even if they’re still cavalier about using them.
Also, I CONSISTENTLY look at your pics and envy the wonderland you guys have available to you!
Well neurologically, they’re really just better at pretending to be more rational and human. They’re actually still pretty mushy up there. Does that help? I mean, they push buttons like it’s their job because developmentally, pushing your buttons is totally their job.
Absolutely been there with my almost 5 year old. I however loved the baby stage. Sadly for me, it ended so damn fast. My dad invited us to go cherry picking on Sunday. I had to drag the child out in his Jammie’s for a morning in the sun with his papa and cousins picking free, delicious, healthy food. Did not like him much then.
“God, growing a family is just such a wild and messy business. Things in them are tangled with things in me and it’s awesome and hurtful and crazymaking and beautiful, all at once.” So, so true. How do you manage to put the things that I’m thinking into words, so perfectly and so often?
I have always enjoyed school age through young adulthood more than babies and toddlers.
Even tonight while my 18 and 20 year old discussed how to pass a drug test I found myself both smiling and ready to strangle them at the same time. They are in college and interesting and engaging and maddening all in a split moment.
I think that is what is called parenthood.
I love this post so much. In addition to my one-year-old I have a 10-year-old step-son, and I often worry that all the complicated ways I feel about him – the myriad emotions that can and do change on a dime – are 100% the result of our lack of shared DNA. This post made me feel simply, joyfully, like a Real Parent. Thank you.
When I was very small, we had a creek in the backyard. One day, I sat in the yard staring at the beautiful creek and thought, “I wish they’d just pave the thing over, so I could have a new playground.”
Seriously, kids are genetically programmed not to appreciate what they have and its super-annoying.
I love this post. It is so true, all of it.
Now that my kids are adults, I have a very hard time recovering when *I* am the asshole. Relationships are so complicated but it seems the parent/child relationship requires the most flexibility.
Right there with you, friend. This is why you and JB need to come visit. The men can go hunting and we can create a tumblr of quotes from our obnoxious (yet adorable!) children.
Yes, yes, yes, god, YES. Linda you are amazing.
Thank you. It’s good to read again..I’m coming from the very murky, sludgy waters of separation and raising two toddler boys and just realizing how incredibly difficult it all was…and to be adult, understand and be able to carry on, while spinning all the different plates. The really? what the hells, from both children and adult etc…It’s been unspeakably hard, even if time makes it easier by one iota. I’ve had to learn about so much-how to deal with things are no part of my value system and how some things are so outside, yet lines up so close to us because we will forever be this transformed family unit. And well, to stay focused on parenting which is right..but sometimes it’s like being told to carry on someone’s denial, accept there are no answers, and move on.
Hearing my sons say “I love Daddy more” just hurts and you’re supposed to say, it’s all equal. It just opens a whole other bag of worms.
I actually haven’t heard the “I love daddy more” or things like that, but it’s going to happen. Anyway, what you wrote was really spot on..my ex was pretty crazymaking, I can laugh a little about it now since I’m conscious of it. I reflect on myself with what you say, of course. But that paragraph says it. The hurt, mess, and coparenting, and how singular, yet in this unit.
We have four kiddos, and each stage has had it’s own amazing and it’s own shitstorms. As Robert Parker says ‘ you may have been a pain the ass, but you’ve never been boring ‘
Agreed on all fronts. It is an intense and amazing journey that some (most?!) days I feel extremely ill equipped for it all.
Simon is still wee, obviously, but I’ve hit that wall with one of T’s step-nieces. She is sometimes (often) just a TERRIBLE PERSON at all of eight years old. I’m not her parent, it isn’t my job to parent her (thank goodness), but man.
I have a tween girl, so let me tell you, I feel your pain! She can be so mean! I have been having a lot of behavioral issues with my younger daughter (age 7) which makes life very difficult. I find co-parenting to be such a pain in the ass sometimes at this age. When they are little, it is much simpler-make sure they survive, now you are trying to shape the adult they will be become and there is so much at stake. My husband and I often disagree on what to do and it causes conflict for us. And living in the car, driving here and there, I could also do without. SO yes, I miss having the little ones, parenting was so much simpler then, but I feel less smothered, so there are pluses and minuses to both for me.
Um, yeah. Times a million. I can’t tell you how many times a week (sometimes an hour), I look at my own children and think, “Holy Hell, you suck.” And then proceed to feel guilty about it forever. But they do (sometimes suck). And even more often I look at my older one (the boy)and think, “you are an idiot.” That boy just has no common sense. None. At all.
My son once told me that dad got to choose the vacations because he made the money. We had a little refresher conversation in which I reminded him that I also work (and make more than dad) and that it was MY gut that got ripped open to give him life. *Ahem*
Can you show Riley a documentary or something about people who have it way worse? Slums of India? Appalachia? Inner city urban area? Mongolia? It’s one thing to hear about it, it’s another to see it.
Deliberate cruelty has always been a weakness of mine. Husband keeps saying, “You can’t take everything so personally,” but when 2 girls are sweetly chirping “I love Mommy!” and the third looks at me, smirks, and says “I love DADDY,” I’m filled with kind of an equivalent mix of Ouch and WTF.
And for the love of all that is holy, I don’t allow my girls to treat me like crap. Disrespectful remarks (“Go away! I want a NEW MOMMY! You’re a meanie!”) must be followed by apologies or else CONSEQUENCES. I make it very clear that, just like them, I have feelings that can be hurt, that I get angry, etc, and they can’t be total shits and expect to get away with it.
Absolutely, positively, COMPLETELY agree. Thanks for making me feel like I’m not alone (because I’ve had the EXACT SAME FEELINGS with my seven year old recently…).
Uh, ya think? I have a 20 yo and an 18 yo. Let me tell you, they make me CRY sometimes with their thoughtless, selfish words and actions, and I do not like them one bit at those moments. The little shits. I am convinced that one of parentings’ greatest lessons is throwing up how big of an asshole you were at the age of your child in your face so you can see the arc of your life and hopefully your path into being a bit less of an asshole, if you are very lucky. God knows I have so much more empathy and sympathy for my mother now, and damn straight I tell her that whenever I see her.
Thank you for this. As always, you put into words so perfectly what so many of us (ALL of us, probably) feel at one time or another.
I’m only getting glimpses with a 3-year old, but even the little stuff, like when she chooses her father over me to read her a story, already stings. And the worst part is my reaction – my urge is to stomp out of the room in a huff and be all mad and mean about it, and I hate that about myself. I know it’s only going to get worse/harder as she grows and oof – I can already see how much I am going to have to grow up to react like a mature person and a mother instead of responding based on impulse, you know?
I remember when my then 6 year nephew asked my Dad what he was gonna get when Dad died. Of course I beat the crap of nephew when I got him alone-ah, the beauty of being an aunt. How you mamas keep your shit together when they go into asshole mode is some kind of testament
amen sister!
Your story reminds me of a visual from years WAYYY back. Christmas morning, my 9 y/o brother and 10 y/o me opened more gifts than any kid should ever be allowed to get. Later, he was on the phone with a friend who asked “what did you get for Christmas” and he said “oh, not much.” OMG, my mom overheard that and completely lost her shit! After all the stuff – decorations, food, presents, party-organizing (you know!) she did every year to make Christmas a wonderful day for her kids, this was her reward – oh geez, like others have said above, I don’t know how you moms/dads put up with it.
OMG. I had that exact thought the other day. We’ve been having a time since we brought the baby home from the hospital. I wondered when I would start to like him again and watched videos of when he was a baby to remind myself that it is just a phase.
[…] 5 year old. It was mostly about not complaining and just being thankful that he has what he does. Sundry’s blog post yesterday pretty much explains exactly how I feel about my oldest these days. It’s […]
My own least favorite is when one of my kids, asked to do a task like setting the table, says, “Why do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?” I tend to follow them around the house doing a comprehensive list of everything the parents do compared to everything the children do. The lecture usually takes about three hours, less if I use the Power Point.
Gaaaaah, this is so spot on and beautifully put and just what I needed to read today (and yesterday, and probably tomorrow).
This has so been on my mind lately. My seven year old has been dealing with some complicated emotions lately that sent us into a (do we get him therapy?)tailspin. We later realized he is just learning how to deal with shit but man is it hard. So much harder than babies on such a different level and yet easier. I’m pregnant with my second son and excited and terrified of the baby stage at the same time.
Thank you.
I have two boys, 10 months and five years. Lately, I find myself constantly frustrated with the child who won’t eat his $5 grilled cheese because “it’s stringy” and I often want to sell his privileged butt to the circus. I keep trying to tell myself that I simply see in him some things I don’t like about myself. But I also still want to drop kick him into our “acreage.”
In her book “Bossypants” Tina Fey likened the rearing of a toddler to having every aspect of your life being determined by a drunk midget. It doesn’t provide much consolation for you predicament but I think that’s an pretty accurate (and hilarious) assessment of parenthood.
You are the best.
Having older kids is easier physically, but SO MUCH harder mentally/emotionally/spiritually. My kids are 8 and 5 and I feel the responsibility much heavier now to ensure that they turn out to be decent human beings! Ugh. Glad it’s not just me… it helps to see that everyone struggles with this.
This is so good, Linda. So good.
I so relate to this post. I love my 6yo, but sometimes she is such a jerk. Last weekend she had a fit because the water slide I bought her wasn’t long enough. So ungrateful!
I love you so much when you post things like this because it makes me feel like I’m not all alone in a world of perfect mothers. Not that you’re not perfect or a good mother but oh crap, I think you know what I mean.
We pray with the kids every night and I have started saying one thing every day that we are grateful for…every night. I’ll share, they’ll each share and my husband will share. And its in an effort to show them to be grateful for things, even the little things like the fact that they got to eat popcorn today or have snowcones or whatever. I think…after about 1 month or so…its sinking in. I THINK.