1. Not your mother’s daughter…how do you parent differently than your mother did? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
me: Mom, remember how when I would be in a bad mood and stomp off to pout in my room. That didn’t seem to upset you!
my mom: It didn’t.
me: Didn’t you feel bad that I was sad and want to fix it?
my mom: Not really.
me: But what about when I would get into fights with my friends.
my mom: Did you fight with your friends?
me: Didn’t you worry that I wouldn’t have anyone to sit next to at lunch?
my mom: No.
When my kids are upset, it ruins my entire day. I become fixated on solving their problems, I hate seeing them upset. Maybe they need me to bake cookies or make them laugh or maybe we need to go shopping! If they’re fighting with a friend, my ears are perked up waiting for an update because I don’t want them to lose their friends or WORSE, I don’t want their friends to turn everyone against them. If one of my kids refused to leave their room I would be peeking in every 10 minutes to see if there is anything I could do. You should hear my line of questioning, “Is everything okay? How was school? Were people nice to you? Did anyone pick on you? Did anyone bump into you? Did your teachers call on you? Were you bullied? Did you eat? Who did you sit with at lunch? Who did you play with at recess? Did you get in trouble? Were you nice?” I’ll stop there.
I complained to my Mom once after one of my kids had a negative reaction to one of my rules. At first I was like, “I don’t care, they can react however they want, but I’m the mom and I’m not budging on my rule!” I have to force myself to be strong because for the most part I just want to be like “OH forget it! You don’t need rules!”
So I asked my Mom, “Mom, how were you able to stay out of it?? How did you manage to not OVERLY care about every little thing we went through?”
She sort of shrugged…parents were just parents back then. There was no “Caring” about what kids thought about rules or discipline. And kids were just kids.
And therein lies how we are different, I have a hard time separating myself from their feelings. I have to force myself to step back and let them experience life, make mistakes, and pick up their pieces because it’s the example my Mom set and I know it’s the right way to parent, but it does not come naturally. I want to rescue them always.
It’s a strange time to raise kids because on one hand we are being told to read their text messages, screen their apps, and stay tuned in. But when we do that we know too much. My kids can’t even get into a squabble with their girlfriends without me being aware of what is happening. I don’t want to be this connected where I worry about all of their things, but I don’t know how or where to disconnect?
And that is why my Mom did it better than I am. She let things run their course. She trusted our decision making (mostly…I think?) and our ability to navigate our own friendships. And just look how wonderful I turned out thanks to her expert mothering skills.
I think the only real solution here is to send her my kids to raise for the remainder of their young lives. They deserve to turn out as well as I did and I have a lot of Netflix to catch up on.