Mother's Day Resolutions

I am not one for New Year's Resolutions but here on the eve of Mother's Day I am thinking about my resolve.

Remember what I said last week about reckless parenting? It seems a prescient concept. I am facing a lot of challenges internally and externally and the ballast of it all is the reputed resilience of my children. That life will test it in coming months is sure. Current discussions on and about blogs seem to focus attention on a societal concept of how the actions/feelings/behavior of a mother might endanger a family ... might endanger a child. Deep pains rumble from the constructions of it's antithesis -- mythic unassailable mothering.

piffle!

I will make it my resolution for this coming year to banish such thoughts from my mind. To refuse to conduct my family life as if my kids are not entitled to existential space on this planet (thanks j. -- you should get a blog). I will parent more recklessly in 08-09. And beyond?

In an in-real-life mom-on-mom chat recently I pontificated further on how conditions change in the family. How the need to find an answer is so ridiculous when problems are most often transient. In the light of this knowledge parenting can become, I estimate, about fifty-two-thousand times more enjoyable. So renewal and chance is blithe. A year from now it will be something new and I will give that its due. For now I just want to protect less and see more.

What's your mother's day resolution?

And, now my son's favorite song.



He actually likes it more because the sight of flight 726 means Dad will be home soon and not because he has any understanding of 21st century helicopter parents.

Bad Parenting Confessional: Authority Figures!

I have a two year old. Discipline is an issue. I often feel like.. authority figure? Who? Me?

Yep, me. When she bumps or whacks the baby, I gotta deal with it. When she mocks nap time. When she throws sand at the playground. Mo-Wo. She's the heavy.

It sucks. Or more appropriately, I suck at it. I will effortless invoke the inheritance tax. I blame my mom for the suckage. For the fact that I hate fulfilling this role as virulently as I do.

My Mum was a real 'she's dead to me' parent. When I moved out at 18 she ripped numerous items, clothing and the like mostly, from my possession announcing the person that they were for wasn't real anymore. Sometimes I still get a bit fucked up about.. well... exisiting really. Thanks Mom!

Knowing what it's like to go from thoughtful to thoughtless human in 30 minutes or less, I wanted to be a more sensitive parent. I caught myself early and always avoid scolding my daughter for not being the 'nice girl she can be'... I always try to focus on the behaviour that is unacceptable.

But it's not working.. She gets a message around here that she is bad. She says so. I wish I had never used the idea of good girl AT ALL. She picks up on everything. If I say be a good girl and do X I'm sunk. She makes mistakes. Last night I tried a fresh bit of redemption. When she said she was a bad girl because she makes mistakes I said No!.
Then I said, "Well honey listen, I make mistakes, don't I?"
"Yes, you do!" she said.
"And, am I a bad mommy?"
"No. No you're not."
"So there you go!"
I could see the wheels turning.. but still.....this is a big hill.

This afternoon as nap strike continued and I abandoned her to an 'enforced period of rest' in her room I was so sad. I thought about it all in such detail. I really felt all those rotten memories of my mother being completely galled by my behavior; my existence. How she did, and still does, make me feel quite small. How I live in a life filled with dissappointment for her. I know my daughter feels my dissappointment about her nonconformity. I also know she feels it alongside a desire for some power. I cannot fault her to want some control of her life even at 2, let alone at 18. But what is right if I don't want her to be spoiled? Ah, back to the Burton White I guess and a little of the Bonny Doon.

Just goes to show that though I fought authority it does always win. Fuckers.