Buckle in friends, I have a story for you. 😉
SO I don't know if I epically failed or won as a parent today....
My kids have been generally bratty for the last few months. Fighting over toys, beating each other up, expecting 'treats' for being good for 30 seconds, not appreciating how hard their Dad and I work to make them happy. Expecting 'surprises' when they go literally anywhere, and behaving so badly that at one stage Master 4 shook his fists at Dad for going cross at him for beating his brother up.
Today, I had enough. I had a day off with them, and as any working parent does, I was folding washing and trying to get housework done, after battling a morning of screaming, fighting and 'NOW!'.
Whilst I was doing this, Master 3 and Master 4 got the steps from the bathroom, shut the door in their 'toy room' (spare room), and got into the memory boxes and stuff that was at the top of the wardrobe, precisely placed at the top of the wardrobe, so as not to be accessed by little fingers. They had been told this before. "This is not for you. You have LOTS of other stuff to play with, so go and play with your toys." The fact they had shut the door, made me realise, they knew they were doing the wrong thing, and didn't want me to find out.
Now let me place the picture for you; for WEEKS my husband and I have been praising 'good' behaviour.
"Oh I love it so much when you play nicely together!"
"See? When we're nice to people, they're nice back! And then EVERYONE has fun!"
Trying to minimise 'bad' behaviour:
*One comes crying because the other has hit them* "What? Master 4 hit you? Well that's not nice is it? We don't play with people who hurt us."
*Me removing myself from the room when they are literally MMA'ing all over each other* "It hurts my heart when you guys are mean to each other, so I'm going to go and you can come and get me when we are going to be nice to each other."
"We don't get what we want by yelling and screaming."
It's FUCKING EXHAUSTING...
But today....
I lost it. I'm not proud. But I fucking lost it.
I told them how angry I was that they had literally 3 rooms full of toys, and they still wanted more. They still wanted to get into the stuff we had specifically told them I didn't want them to touch even though it looks like ToyWorld has vomited over our house. I told them how lucky they were to have so much stuff and that some kids in the world don't even have ONE toy, let alone a whole house full of everything they could imagine.
Then I removed myself from the situation, and pondered a punishment.
Now when I was an ungrateful shit of a child, and refused to clean up my toys, my Mum told me that if I didn't clean them up, she would give them to good will.
I didn't believe her.
So she packed up my shit up and gave it to goodwill. I asked for them back a day later.
They were gone.
A good 30 years have passed since this day. But I remember it like it was yesterday. Not traumatised at all. Definitely didn't bring it up to Mother today about how much that upset me.....
So what did I do? I called my Mum. Obviously. She's dealt with devil children (me) and survived.
What we were going to do was cull their toys, and take them to kids who had nothing. They were going to appreciate how much they had, by giving their stuff to kids who would TRULY appreciate them.
So I dumped all their toys in the living room (all fucking 4 Kmart buckets of them + all the big toys!), I had 3 buckets set up and a rubbish bag. And every time we had to put a 'broken' toy in the bin, I reminded them, that their parents had worked hard to get them that toy, and they'd destroyed it by being too rough, or not caring for their things.
At the end we had a whole big bucket of toys to give away + 1 big item.
I rang the women's centre - they didn't want them.
I rang the domestic violence resource centre - they didn't want them.
Finally, I rang the pediatrics ward of the hospital, and they said they would love them, as long as they could wipe them over with a sanitized cloth. Bingo!
So I sat the kids down, and told them that we were going to take all the toys that they didn't want anymore, and give them to kids who were not as lucky as them. They were sad, but I was staunch.
I anticipated tears. I anticipated tantrums. I anticipated the staff pulling these toys from my ungrateful shit of kid's hands.
We parked in the hospital carpark, and went toward what I thought was the pediatrics ward of the hospital. It's been a while since I worked there. I dunno anymore. The door we entered, directed us to the Children's Oncology (cancer) Ward. I thought, whatever, maybe they'll direct us to the right area.
We got there, pushed the reception button and she let us in. A Nurse came up to us, and I said "my kids have hand picked some toys, that they would like to give to children that are less fortunate as them."
She was fucking stoked. My kids didn't even blink. They had no idea of the gratitude that this person was giving us.
She addressed them. "What's your name, what's your name?" Then she said "that is amazing of you guys. Thank you so much."
My kids beamed. I didn't expect that. They frikkin beamed! And as we were standing there, this little kid, no older than 2, toddled up to hit the toys we'd just donated. The Nurse took them out of his reach (for obvious WH&S reasons) but said "look how happy he is that you've given us these toys."
Dead set guys. My heart gushed. My 2 little inconsiderate, selfish little pricks of kids, looked proud as punch. They were so happy to be giving kids something they didn't have. No tears. No protests. Just pure happiness to be doing something nice.
The Nurse gushed over them. Thanked them. I felt something in my cold, dead heart move.
I said to Master 3 & Master 4, "how did giving those toys to less fortunate kids make you feel?"
"Good." Was their reply.
"So do you see how doing nice things for other people, makes us feel nice?"
"Yes."
When we got home, Master 3 had fallen asleep, but Master 4 said he wanted to play with his Lego. Lego that we had finally put in one place after going through buckets of toys and grouping them. (OCD twitch).
I went to the shops and came back an hour later. He was still playing quietly with his Lego.
"Have you liked playing with your Lego?" *nods*
"Are you glad that Mummy didn't give your Lego away?" *nods*
"Are you appreciative that you have Lego when some other sick kids don't?" *nods*
Mothering. God damn it I umm'd and ahh'd about doing this. I thought I was gonna screw my kids up. I felt like I was losing control over my children where they thought they were 'owed' things and stuff and had no idea. My pet hate.
When I got home, husband said "you turned a negative thing, into a good thing'. Man I just about cried. I was so dead set that I had fucked my kids up forever, and was damaging them psychologically in ways I had no idea......
We are so hard on ourselves as mothers. We constantly think we're doing the wrong thing, having no idea what the right thing is, but just assuming we're fucking it up!
When our kids, are, well, kids, we blame ourselves and feel like we're failing.
Fuck me, I dead set thought I'd screwed my kids for life today.
My goal in life is to make my children into productive, and caring adults. I think I went a little bit step forward with that today. Bad intentions, might have made good products.
Tune in next week for: I've given the toys my kids love away to teach them a greater lesson.
Much love,
Qld Nurse.
