I have a coming up on 17 month old child who many describe as 'strong willed' or 'determined'. I have some other choice words that I use occasionally to describe him, but I won't write those down....
He is at the developmental stage where he has realised that he CAN be disobedient if he wants to, and boy, does he want to sometimes. He's smart enough to be manipulative - so much so, that my husband hasn't quite figured out that he's the 'favourite' parent because my child knows exactly how to push him right in his feels which results in my husband giving my child whatever he wants. Amateur. Other times he is the sweetest, cutest little shit in the whole world and you forget that he just jumped on the dog and pulled the dirty nappies out of his bin after the 10th time you've told him not to play with it.
Anyway, my point is. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I told some of my workmates yesterday that my epic fear is that I'll be sitting down to watch the local news in 18 or so years and see my child's house surrounded by a SWAT team and wonder if that time I put him in time out to calm down turned him into a serial killer. They looked at me like I had some seriously big kangaroos loose in the ol' top paddock.
Look, I definitely do have a few loose, but the thing is, I just know those fuckers are thinking the same thing. Probably not to the same extreme, but don't all parents at some stage just think 'who let me be in charge of raising a human?!?!'
So I'm coming out, and I'm letting all you mums and dads know that I do in fact, not know what I'm doing as a parent. I have some good days, where I feel like my shit is mostly together, and then I have other days where the PJ's are firmly on all day and ABC kids is on non-stop on the telly. I try to make all my decisions with love. My husband and I have an agreement, that if we're having a problem, I google some shit, we decide on a plan of attack and we try it for a week. If it doesn't work, we go back to the drawing board & try something else. So in order to make all you other parents feel a shit tonne better about yourselves, here are some of the ways I have no doubt guaranteed that as an adult my child will be using some sort of variant of this....
I 'sleep trained' my child and yes there were many tears. One of us was in the room patting his back and 'shh'-ing him while those tears were flowing, but if you believe the 1950's articles about the cortisol levels of neglected children in war-torn countries' orphanages, I have irreparably fucked my son's brain & he will blame me for that when he ends up in jail. No doubt. But hey, he's always in bed by 7pm & I'm getting some sleep now so....
I let him eat crap food sometimes. He was bordering on a food aversion most likely due to his time in the NICU from having a tube down his throat, and his milk protein allergy that took months and lots of screaming to diagnose. We were struggling to get him to eat. Like REALLY struggling. Like having an endoscopy for vomiting/seeing a speech therapist/spending lots of money on rare weird food in an attempt to find something he would eat struggling. He likes hot chips. Some days we let him eat as many hot chips as that tiny little human can fit into his tiny little stomach. This will indubitably lead to a lifetime of obesity and a stroke at 40. My bad son, my bad.
I make him wait sometimes. I love my son and he makes me smile. Sometimes he has to wait to be played with or picked up or even taken out of his cot after a nap because I have my arms full of shopping, or I'm making him something to eat, or I've gotta pee. Sometimes I'm just mummied out and want an extra 5 minutes to finish my game of Candy Crush. He's always safe, but those extra 5 minutes where he's lying in his cot babbling happily to his stuffed koala mean I've probably screwed the attachment thing and the trust do-whats-it and that bit that parenting guru said that time. Oops.
Day care. I send him to daycare while I work. Sometimes, if I'm sick, I send him daycare while I rest at home. I know, I know. There's 2 schools of thought on this - one is that a parent should always be present with their child and sending them to daycare/care of some sort will ensure they take drugs as a teenager and coward punch someone because they weren't hugged enough or something. The second is that seeing both parents contribute financially to the household will help them realise the partnership of marriage and see women as equal. My theory is, that poverty REALLY fucks a kid up. So I'm fucking him up less by ensuring he can do swimming and when he gets older karate, or soccer, or IV drug use. Whatever.
The point is, no matter what you do as a Mum, that Mummy guilt will follow you everywhere you go. There are thousands of theories on how to raise your child, there are thousands of others that contradict those. The only thing that I can guarantee is that no matter what problem you think you're having, there is another Mum/Dad out there somewhere who is going through exactly the same thing. They are just as exasperated as you, and they feel just alone as you because their Facebook feed is full of Pinterest Mum's over achieving kid's colour coordinated lunchbox & outfit and she never has snot on her shirt. It's the toughest job you'll ever do. And if you ever feel like you suck at this parenting gig, feel free to tweet me and I'll tell you about my day when I let my child eat the potato stick that the dog had chewed on, because I figured he'd already stuck it in his mouth and the germs were already there. Yeah I seriously, don't know what the fuck I'm doing.
Cheers,
Qld Nurse.
