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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