When I Have Kids...

“When I have kids, I’ll never (fill in the blank).” We’ve all said it, or at least thought it, at some point in our childhoods and/or adolescences (probably more so during adolescence). Spanking, grounding, yelling, threatening, reading your kid’s diary…all base treachery from the point of view of a youngster trying to find their place in the world. It’s only when we become parents that we realize how much our own parents really cared about us when they committed these sins.

When I discovered I was pregnant, I became an information sponge for early childhood development. I read everything I could get my hands on: books, parenting magazines, online articles, mommy blogs. I used the plethora of available information to form my parenting persona, or so I thought. I was going to be Mother of the Year every year. I was going to be the most awesome mom ever with the most intelligent, articulate, well-behaved, well-adjusted child on the face of the planet. I was going to always be patient, kind, loving, understanding. I would set firm boundaries and expectations and only use positive redirection to enforce them. I would never, ever lose my temper or become so frustrated with my child that I lashed out in anger with a raised voice, authoritarian words and punishment; such unspeakable acts are indicative of lesser mortals than I, Super-Mom. Unfortunately, Super-Mom is a pipe dream shared by most mothers, including myself. I am, in fact, a lesser mortal.

My kid drives me crazy. There, I said it. It doesn’t mean I don’t love her. I love my daughter more than I thought it was possible to love anyone, ever. I also want to strangle her a good bit of the time. My grandiose, rose-colored view of parenting has been brought crashing back to Earth by hard, cold reality: kids are not clay to be molded in their parents’ image. They have their own personalities which help dictate their actions and responses. This is a hard pill to swallow for most parents, including my own (and myself). My daughter’s personality is very different from my own. I’m an introvert, she’s an extrovert. I have always been one to stand back quietly and observe any situation before adding myself to the mix; she dives right in. I prefer the back seat, she likes to be the center of attention. I avoid confrontation at all costs; she speaks her mind in any and every situation. My greatest challenge as a parent is conforming my discipline style to her personality type. I have yet to find the magical balance; I often find myself yelling, threatening, spanking and attempting to impose my own will on my willful child. While I know intellectually (and from personal experience) that these discipline tactics are more likely to foster resentment than to actually help her learn self-control, I have a very hard time separating my in-the-moment emotions from my end-goal. I have two mantras that I repeat to myself constantly: “Kind but firm” and “It is not my job to control my child, but to teach my child how to control herself.” I keep hoping that with enough mental repetition they will eventually sink in.

I still hope to become a better mother than I am. I have, for the most part, given up on the idea of perfection. When I do lose my temper, I talk to my daughter about it. We talk about the choices she made, what she could have done differently, what I could have done differently and how we can both do better next time. I hope that this teaches her that everyone makes mistakes, but how one handles the aftermath is important, and that mistakes are learning experiences. That, I think, is the most important thing.