here, have a mantra
This week was the week between "school" and "camp"—in scare quotes because, A, he's two years old and it's all daycare, and B, they're both the same thing, no matter how his teachers insist there's a difference between "work materials" and "toys." And, logistically, it was fine—I had the space in my work to take on the brunt of childcare. But, otherwise, whooboy.
Requisite acknowledgement of full-time stay-at-home parents goes here, along with acknowledgement of single parents, holy shit. But the baby and I both suffer at the suddenness of it, being pulled out of our routines—him, school; me, sitting at my computer all day. He manifests this in increasing rowdiness; me, in increasing anxiety, not because I'm not getting my must-do work done but from all the little things that pile up when I'm not just at my computer all day.
I'm at my computer now, as you can guess, and the relief of soon being able to pay bills, answer emails, follow up on things, to at least totally know what's in my inbox—I'm trying to let it wash over me, but the baby is just in the other room, with my husband, and he's throwing his water bottle at the dog.
The rowdiness that's wearing me so thin might be about the loss of routine, the loss of ten other kids to run around with all day, but I have to accept that it's also him growing up. We've got full sentences here, we've got "what's that?" and "why?" And so we're getting more and more of the kid I'm told my husband was when he was small, rambunctious and rowdy and A Handful. The smiliness we've always known is still there, but now it's full of mischief, it's running away from me with a handful of leaves that were pulled from our garden, it's chomping into my thigh, it's petting the dog 20% too hard—smiling the whole time, but finding twenty ways to sprint through a parking lot.
He cries plenty, too: he wants his milk in a straw cup, he wants a second croissant that does not exist, he wants to watch monster trucks, he wants he wants he wants. I remind myself: it's good that he knows what he wants, don't take that away.
I learned that way of thinking—that it's good that he knows what he wants, that it's my job to preserve that connection he has to his body and his desires—from one of the several instagram parenting experts I follow. Instagram parenting experts are easy to mock for their scripts and platitudes, but beneath the shortcuts are an ethos, and I find it really helpful—to have the scripts when I'm lost, and to find the ethos through time and thinking about what feels right to say and why. "You want another croissant, I get that, it sucks when you want something and can't have it." I mean, what could be truer!! That comes from Dr. Becky, who has a podcast, too, in case you want a parenting podcast in your life. She offers lots of helpful ideas (and for older kids, too, not just toddlers), and today I'm leaning hard on a mantra I learned from her, which maybe you could use today, too:
This feels hard because it is hard.
This morning, for me, it was keeping open, positive energy with a toddler who doesn't do what I want him to do—and why should he? It's not what he wants to do!—and the miasma of uncertainty after not really keeping up with life for a week. We were driving home from Starbucks—whence came the sadly singular croissant—and I just felt bad. Not just tired and stressed, but insufficient, seeing years of this manic kid energy ahead of us, and my inability to rise to the challenge. I can handle crying, I can handle frustration. But the grin-and-run-away-into-traffic is not for me. And so of course I felt bad—he's my kid! I need to be up for every kind of bullshit and challenge he throws at me. That's my job. Look at me, driving home from Starbucks feeling like a bad mother, the perfect suburban cliche. But then, not yet sufficiently cliched, I gave myself that mantra that I learned from a parenting expert on instagram: This feels hard because it is hard. Not because I'm a bad mother, not because I'm less patient or energetic than I should be, or than other parents are. It's just hard!
I can hedge and joke about cliches all I want, but it really helped me. Keep it in your pocket just in case.