Letters to the Editor
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Install a basketball net over the garage
Install a basketball over the garage so your kid will have something to do during the long lonely hours while you decompress from the extreme annoyances of daily life. HAHAHA~ no seriously.
LW I hope you are being overly hard on yourself. The way you describe yourself you sound just like that godawful mother in Jeanette Walls' Memoir The Glass Castle. Have you read that book?
Maybe you aren't really that bad, maybe you do give a f about your kid and because you give so much of yourself and your energy to him, you are exhausted. Or maybe not, maybe you are just a hysterical stressball all caught up in fulfilling the personality traits associated with your astological sign and meeting your own "needs" while damaging your kid for life.
4-5-6 year olds can be VERY demanding. They are still into repetitive play which gets pretty boring if you are relatively intelligent. They are lovable and affectionate, but at 4-5-6 they are center stage LOOK AT ME!!! 24-7. Really, you need to watch them jump and twirl simultaneously JUST ONCE MORE to really get what they are trying to do, here. Also, you are just a supporting character in their comedic melodrama. Well, that is better than just having a walk-on role, right?
The upside, is, this phase won't last for ever. The downside is, if you can't find the energy to pay attention to him now, as he gets older his cries for attention might become much more destructive and damaging.
Being a parent is difficult. Being a single parent must be at least twice as difficult. Or maybe some compounded multiple of difficult. So, if you need a break, and your extended family won't come through and watch the kid for you, then think about sending him to day camp this summer at the Y or the local church or synagogue or maybe the zoo or science center. Whatever it takes. Get a part time job (something quiet and brainless so you can daydream) and find the money to pay the camp fees.
Not just for your--Your CHILD's sanity may depend on you getting away from each other for a good 5-6 hours each day. You don't sound like you're a joy to be around, anyhow. Maybe you can appreciate him more and enjoy spending your remaining time with him if you have some built-in separations into the routine. And, if he is active and physical at camp all day, then you can schedule some quiet mutually contemplative activities like a nature walk or a visit to the library or science museum together. Who knows, you may actually ***enjoy your time*** being present with him, without feeling like you are "giving" your time away.
The entire time I read The Glass Castle I just wanted to shake that mother up out of her novel, away from her easel, and tell her to wake up to the way she was endangering and damaging her children. Really, I wanted to slap her. I hope you're not as bad as you describe yourself.
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Toughest job you'll ever love
LW,
You're a thief! Did you break into my mind and write my thoughts to Cary?
I am posting to validate your feelings and to let you know that you are not alone. My kids take almost everything I've got. Perhaps this is as it should be, but I get lost in reverie sometimes... in memories of childhood when we roamed the neighborhood all day, riding dirtbikes, role playing and banging around with the other dirty animal kids in the hood. We just had to be home by dark and we couldn't beat on anyone. It was pretty simple, no shuttling to ten different activities, no 'playdates', and definitely no nannies.
Strange days now though. Our kids are barely ever out of our sight. What happened to the pack of kids that used to figure out ways to settle their own differences? We'd have to adjust our behavior without our parents leaning over us, "Say sorry to Tommy for clobbering him!". We worked it out with the other kids, played imaginative games for hours and we weren't in the fold of anyone's apron.
It's absolutely mad, this pressure! I met a woman at the park the other day who told me she joined a church just to have a few hours of adult time. I pictured her sitting on a stiff bench, supposedly hearing the sermon in a nice blouse, glazed eyes and daydreams while her son was in religious ed.
I get what you are saying LW, it's an unnatural world, modern parenting. The pressures are enormous and the guilt over how we fail can break anyone. Get yourself into a routine that can replenish your spirit and find a place to get some fitness into your life (a club with childcare or activities, like the Y?). Even when resources are low, you will find that your feelings of isolation and desperation are universal.
You don't have to join a 'playgroup' where everyone seems to want to discuss kids every second of every day and you don't have to start wearing mommy jeans. It is imperative though, (and non-negotiable) that you find some like-minded girlfriends. You will be able to identify us. We are the ones who have that dazed and slightly exhausted look, as if we have lost something but we are finding it amusing anyway. That is how you will find your posse of support.
Ah, the joys of parenting!
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This is why we get up before the children and go to bed after
That's your time to have to yourself. Before they get up, and after they go to bed. That's also why we make 6 year olds go to bed at 7pm. That, and they act crazy if you don't.
Are you going to prioritize getting alone time, or socializing time?
OK, we've established 2 hours before (get up at 5, go to bed at 9:30. Now, as a mother, I am going to give you the only knowledge you need here: you need to stop thinking so much about yourself and more about your kid. Does that sound harsh? It's reality. You chose to have a child. So now you have to adjust your needs. Even if you had a partner, you'd have to adjust your needs.
No matter how many writers claim that mothers can "balance" stuff, some things can not be balanced. Some thing has to give. What usually gives is our time for ourselves and our selfish wants. What we keep is what we need. Our kids and survival are our priorities.
It's not about loveable and outgoing. It's about chosing to be in the moment with our kids, and then using the time without them for what we need. How much do you need the adult companionship you seem so ambivalent about?
Babysitters help. Trading with other mothers helps (set up a play room or a video game and you are golden).
Does the father have every other weekend? Adjust custody to half week?
Six is when it gets easier. Six is when the survival instinct begins to kick in, when you can sleep a little later and let them get up and eat a pop tart on the weekend. It is when you get to take a bath uninterrupted. Why is this coming to ahead now, and not before when it was harder?
You know, mothers do what we need to do. I have to say, I don't think you know what you need yet. You are easily overstimulated but you love attention and people? You need time alone but you ask about socializing? You ask:
How do I socialize without feeling utterly agitated and drained and depressed for days afterward? How do I get out of myself without losing the way home? How do I give to others without giving myself away? How do I get out of this bubble?
I am so tempted to ask WHO is it that you want to socialize with? Why are you trying with people who are not satifactory? And where does your child fit into this, because your child's needs dictate the chord progression for your improvisation of a social life.
Do what you need to do to be sane, but seriously, evaluate carefully to see how much time you really need for what. You probably need more structure, not more time alone. If you can get stuff done while the kid is awake, you can use your two hours early and two hours late to decompress.
If you want to socialize, pick your people carefully. If you are getting exhausted, you are socializing with the wrong people.