Parenting is Wild

Mom is the most stupid, most rewarding, most depressing, most fun, most exciting, most dreadful title I’ve worn in my life!

If you’re still reading after that first line, you’re clearly my people.  If not, you’re either in denial or someone else is raising your children.  For real.

I would like to preface the following text with a disclaimer: these are my thoughts based on my experiences. Some of what I have to say may seem one-sided or like its missing context.  Well, I’d like to preserve the privacy of my children and keep from incriminating myself.  At the end of the day, and this post, I love my children; the one I birthed and the ones I didn’t.

But they get on my effing nerves!

I have one son that I gave birth to, three bonus daughters that I inherited in my marriage, and two of my bonus daughters have a brother who I claim as well. This week has been an interesting one and some of the instances just triggered me and made me think about parenting in general. It is neither for the weak nor faint of heart.  It’s not for those of us built Ford tough, either.

It’s challenging going from loving someone with your whole being, to wanting to push them off of something really high, to then knowing you’d have to nurture them as they heal from the fall.  Why is parenting this way?  Why are the highs so high and the lows so low? I often reflect on being a teenager, then a young adult and while I know I wasn’t perfect, I can’t imagine having my parents on a rollercoaster with so many twists, turns, inversions, and dips. Children will test your nerve, your faith, your vocabulary, and your gangsta.

Am I too strict/lenient? Do I give them too much or do I make them work for what they want?  Do they feel like they can talk to us or are they still keeping secrets. Am I trying to control their lives or am I giving them freedom to create their own paths and make their own mistakes (whyyyyyyyy is the bump on my head not proof enough that you don’t have to make your own mistakes?!?!?!?!?)?

The answer: ALL. OF. THE. ABOVE. AND. SOME!

These kids are in the trenches, and they got it out the mud!  Just not the same mud we got it out of. I have to constantly remind myself that the world they are being raised in is not the world I was raised in. The access that they have and actively take advantage of is as unnerving as it is beneficial.  The fact that they think their lives should mirror every life except their own is flabbergasting. When I think I’m overachieving, I’m still falling short.  When I show up as my best self, it is sometimes still just barely enough. When I choose to mind my business and leave them to figure it out, it always ends up as when they need me the most.

Parenting is ghetto.  It’s turned me into the softest, but most dangerous thug I know. Maybe in another post I’ll talk about all the amazing aspects of being a mom.

Today, I’m ready to blow this popsicle stand.