Parents Just Don't Understand

I thought parenting would get easier! Maybe not easier, but at least not make me feel like a total dumbass every day. Just when I think I have something figured out, the kids throw me a curveball and I realize that I do not know what the hell I am doing.


There really needs to be classes for this. Every day I am presented with a new battle, situation, question, etc… that I am not sure how to handle. While I am tempted to say, “Go ask your dad.” Or something like that, DH is just as clueless as I am sometimes. In fact, I am so perpetually clueless that my six year old knows when he has stumped me and will reply with, “Do you want me to get your computer so you can Google it?” Seriously, Google is my parenting Yoda.

I realize that I would be a horrible teacher, because I cannot seem to effectively communicate the most basic of things. I never thought I would have to explain to someone why playing in their poo is a bad idea, why eating crayons is not nutritional, why you cannot paint your brother, why spaghettios do not go on the floor, how dangerous it is to eat money, and while we encourage creativity, why it is not acceptable to draw on our furniture with markers. I did not know these things would come up. I thought there were some basics that were just wired in our systems somewhere. I truly thought that “because I said so” would be a sufficient answer and they would just move on. I guess my first parenting mistake was believing that my children would mind me, all of the time.

I have tried many parenting techniques and they all seem to only work occasionally or with certain children. One of my favorites is the shaming. Catch the little one doing something he shouldn’t, “Jesus is watching you.” Or tell them “That makes mommy cry, do you want to make mommy sad?” Ok, so I know it is not the best method but seemed to work for a bit, and was an effective tool for letting me be able to parent, without parenting. I mean, I am not trying to get out of my parental responsibilities but sometimes I feel so unprepared, and my only training would be how I interacted with my sister when she was little, and that was the crap I did to her. (of course, it did not work then either)

Or I try to turn into super strict mom and just ground them from everything and expect them to learn their lesson and move on. Yeah, not so much. There are few reasons why this does not work. 1. Little ones do not care if they are grounded. I mean I cannot make them sit in the corner all day, and when push comes to shove, they can play all day long without the tv, without toys, and without friends. They have each other and they have their imaginations. 2. When they decide they are bored with each other, who do they expect to entertain them? Me, that’s who! Do not get me wrong, I love playing with my children, but not all of the damn time. So essentially when you ground your kids, you ground yourself. If they are grounded from the tv, then so am I. If they cannot go to a friend’s house, then that means they are under my feet constantly.

Sometimes I feel like I am their puppet. Like they have the strings and are constantly following me saying “dance, Mommy, Dance.” I am not trying to bitch about this. It is not nearly as horrible as it sounds I suppose, but it does make me feel like a complete assbag. I just feel so lost on what the right thing to do is. I was never one of those girls that dreamt of when she got married and had babies. It is not that I did not want to I guess, it is just that I never thought of it. I guess I just assumed it would happen one day, so I never spent a lot of time focusing on it. And then BAM! Between 2003-2010 I became a wife, and the mother to 3 BOYS and I never really gave myself a chance to “learn the ropes” first. All I really learned is that I suck at birth control. But I always thought that my parenting philosophy would be that if you just loved them enough and gave them the space, that they would make the right decisions. I just thought it would all feel a little more natural. I mean, I am a mom, shouldn’t I be programmed with some of this information naturally and long to do nothing but me a mother?

If so, then I am a freak, because that is not me at all. I love my children, man do I ever, to the point that it physically hurts sometimes, and I know that I want to keep them safe at all costs. I know I want them to have high self esteem and be happy, honorable, and kind men one day, but I have no idea how to get them from here to there.

So until I figure it out, if I ever figure it out, I will continue to be a manic mommy, desperately trying to teach my kids how to live right, just Because I Said So.