Thursday, November 11, 2010

The honesty of parenting

Today I was a crappy parent.  In addition, I was a crappy parent to kids who were horribly behaved which led me to believe that maybe I am always a crappy parent, but then I deduced it was all just today being bad all around.

Today I cried more than I smiled, complained more than I complimented and whined more than I nurtured.  The kids pushed my buttons and I reacted, and not in a good way, and all around, we just had a crummy day.

That is how it is some days.  Hell, we are human, that did not change when we became parents!  I still get hurt, and tired, and overwhelmed.  I still overreact and have meltdowns and want to be somewhere else in the moment.  Parenting is not sunshine and cookies and hugs from sweet little children, I mean some days it is, but most days it is messes on the floor, too much laundry, arguing kids and exploding diapers, and that can be hard to bear at times.  Today the kids fighting was too much for me, them yelling and refusing to do a simple chore while I was breaking my back working, it simply got to me and I yelled back and punished and took things away.  Today, I had enough.

But then we cooled down.  They apologized, I apologized, we come to some conclusions about where it all went wrong and I hugged them and loved on them and told them that even though I am mad at what they did, and that I am tired of the fighting and arguing, that I love them and that I forgive them and then I assured them that yes, the punishment still stands.

2 comments:

Casey said...

Love this. Truth in parenting. I think if more people were honest about the not good parts, we would all feel less like horrible parents on those horrible days.

You made it through. Cheers!

Tribe Mama said...

Thanks Casey, some days just suck, and sometimes we just have bad days as parents too! I am so sick of people who won't say that it happens, it is OK, the kids will be OK, hell THEY will have bad parenting days too someday :)