Monday, September 02, 2013

turkeys everywhere

Pre-church pirate. "With a light saber" (paintbrush). #ohcaptainourcaptain #vscocam #vscocam_kids #afterlight

I suppose it's one of the occupational hazards of parenting that your children will sometimes make you want to hide under a rock.   I always thought that parents purposefully embarrassed their teenagers because it was good for them.  Now I'm suspecting it's also done for revenge.

My children are lunatics, prone to irrational fits of behaviors that are either socially offensive or outright dangerous.  And because I am their mother this is somehow my fault, or at least my responsibility.  There is nothing more overwhelming, or sometimes disheartening.

All of which is only one side of the story.  They aren't all always antagonizing me, and they each have an abundance of redemptive qualities.  I fully expect that once I'm looking back on this period, I'll be able to do so affectionately through rose-colored-glasses.  But my goodness, there is a reason they call this the pit; the front lines; the trenches.

Today my oldest two each embarrassed me soundly while at church.  The kind of embarrassment that results in beet metaphors.  If I had not been their parent I would have probably thought worse of their parents for the behavior they exhibited.  Whether that speaks more of my own judgementality or of their behavior I am not sure.  But it was bad. Baaaaaad.

I find I'm often hoping, from underneath that rock I where I want to be hiding, that all parents feel this way sometimes.  That all kids are abysmal at times.  And most parents will verbally commiserate with me when the topic comes up.  But there's still a fear that lingers, a fear that my kids' worst is so much worse and more consistent than others kids' worst that they are outliers in the worst way.  I worry that other adults see my kids coming into their care and they groan a little inside.

Most likely this is the branching out of my own insecurity.  Because frankly I feel the same way about myself.  98% of me trusts that most people find me reasonably likeable, but a very loud 2% fears that everyone is always relieved when I leave the party.  I blame this 2% on an ill-fated, short-lived, wildly unhealthy relationship of my youth and it makes me furious to think it is affecting my parenting.

So laments the crazy lady today.

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