When’s the last time you had a fight with your spouse? Was it the time he left his wet bathing suit at the bottom of the hamper for a week? The time she forgot to mention her 3-day work trip until the day before? The seventy-sixth time he said, “ask mom,” when mini-him wanted Doritos for dinner?
You think these fights are about the fact that you didn’t use your therapist-approved “I sentences”? Hahhahaha, how bourgeois. They are actually about not being able to afford a 24/7 housekeeper. Money planning, and not having enough of it, can get in the way of closeness. Here’s some options for how to think about shared finances, and how to set up those conversations for success:
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Being forced to loosen the parenting reins has done wonders for my child.
I remember when my eldest entered high school four years ago. It was unchartered territory and I felt it was my responsibility to help him navigate everything, from his social life to his homework to the amount of time he spent on his phone. I was never a helicopter parent, but I did have a certain level of involvement in what my son did back then.
Fast forward to this year and my daughter beginning her high school journey. So much has changed in the past couple of years: I’ve separated from my husband, my son is off to college, and I’m working longer hours than ever before. Finding time to micro-manage my daughter’s life just isn’t in play, and honestly, that’s turning into a win for us both.
To sum it up: I am dropping a lot of balls.
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First of all, I can almost guarantee that I’m ruining my child as I type this, so please know that I’m not an expert in anything. Truly. I haven’t even officially logged my required 10,000 hours of parenting to become Malcom Gladwell-certified.
So if I’m not an expert, why write this? Good question. And here’s the answer: Something I am slowly but steadily becoming an expert on, is myself. My reactions, my triggers, my stunningly cavernous gaps in my ability to connect, my lack of empathy, and my sad truth that most of my basic emotional needs were not met as a child. And through that painful process, I have stumbled on some universal truths around what human beings need in order to feel safe and seen and alive. And by “stumbled on” I mean “spent thousands of dollars on therapy to figure out how the fuck to be a good parent.”
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“It’s a girl!” my partner exclaimed, as he gently pulled our first baby from my body.
A girl. I knew it was a girl. I mean I didn’t actually know, but I knew it was because sometimes you just know these things. After nine months of anticipation, ten days past my due date, 67 hours of labor and really my whole life of wondering what it would be like if I had a baby, she was finally here. Seven pounds, six ounces and 20 inches of a being that was half of me, half of him and 100% all her.
But as she lay on my chest, mouth agape and eyes wide, I looked at her and…well…I just looked at her. I’m sure I murmured something like “Hi baby!” or “Thank you for finally joining us!” but I don’t really remember. It wasn’t significant. It wasn’t the elation of a new mother finally meeting her daughter for the first time. It wasn’t baby talk or happy tears or a smothering of kisses all over her tiny, round, slightly birth-battered face. It was just a baby.
I remember being so bewildered when I first laid eyes on her and as I continued to stare at her throughout the next few days. Who was this person? For some reason, I had envisioned birthing this chip off the old block and then immediately knowing who it was. Like “Yes! There you are. Of course it was you. I knew you all along.” But something must’ve been amiss. I must have miscalculated the mom-to-baby insta-bond because this…THIS! This was a stranger. And I was pretty sure I didn’t love it.
Yes. My own child. That I conceived, carried and brought forth into the world. I didn’t love her.
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There is always a trigger event. That’s what it’s called. “The Trigger Event.” The thing that makes you fly completely off the handle. The trigger event could be a plethora of different things. It may be that you’re late for school drop off and your kid can’t find their shoes. It could be siblings fighting over who gets the “good spoon.” Perhaps it’s someone’s nonstop whining about how hungry they are while the baby is crying and you’re trying to just get the spaghetti made. Or maybe it’s just some dirty socks on the floor. Whatever the occurrence, whatever the size — you. are. pissed.
Moms. We are warm, nurturing, accepting and generous human beings. But we are also full of rage. I’m not talking about bad days. About bad weeks even. Or about phases of children’s development that we haven’t yet figured out how to manage. I’m talking about those of us who are pissed off on the regular. Of course, it’s not all of us; there are plenty of mothers with patient, rational brains running the show.
But right around every corner of calm, there is a red-faced mother on the verge of an explosion.
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