Parenting Can Be Frustrating
I need to talk about my 6 year old telling me I’m lazy but I don’t know if I want to do it here. Discussing parenting requires me to be vulnerable in a way that I’m not sure I’m ready for yet. It opens up a part of my life to judgment that I’m sensitive about, but I feel like I have to get this off of my chest.
Today was a good day for the most part but I have two problems, one is that I’ve been ruminating for the past week about a comment my daughter made about me. She said I was lazy (more on that shortly). The second issue is that I don’t get breaks, and that is frustrating in a way that I can’t always describe.
While I’m “being lazy” and carting my daughter and me around town to do all of the things that need to be done, I get tired. I came home today and made lunch. I offered my daughter (we’ll call her L) a plethora of options but she insisted on a jelly sandwich and one mozzarella stick (yes, she was specific in the amount). Now, I don’t mind the jelly sandwiches as a snack, but I really pushed for her to add more to her plate because I know my child, she’ll be hungry again soon. Surprisingly she was adamant about not eating anything else and even said she was full (she did not finish the sandwich). I left her to her device (I’m an iPad mom and I am not ashamed), and I laid on the couch to take a much-needed nap.
To understand what happens next, you have to understand who I am as a person. At my core, I disdain being woken up from naps. It’s a well-known fact about Brittanie. In the past, my family has held rock paper scissor competitions to determine who will wake me up out of peaceful slumber. The only thing I hate more than being woken up for good reason is being woken up for a frivolous reason. It makes me irate. Moving on…
I didn’t hear L come downstairs but I felt her climb on the couch. I felt her step on my leg and say, “Mom, I’m hungry.”
I screamed.
I know what you’re thinking. That was an intense reaction, and you’re right it was. I’d like to highlight that I’d been doing my gentle parenting practice all week. I kept my composure when she called me lazy at the beginning of the week. I gave her a good lesson on what that word means, and we discussed her reasoning for saying that in the first place (she wants me to play with her more). But THIS? This was egregious because I asked her multiple times if she wanted more food, she insisted that she did not, and even LEFT food on the table. And yet, here she is waking me up… not even 45 minutes later asking for food.
So yeah, I lost it.
She quietly tiptoed back upstairs and left me alone until dinner time. (She also finished eating her lunch, not without a few tears, but at that point my sympathy was minimal.) I never went back to sleep, and I’m still here holding onto the anger I felt earlier because I have been tired all week and I can’t even take a weekend nap. Resting when I need it is a luxury I can no longer afford, and I think I was most angry about that realization. L is in bed now, I think tomorrow we can talk about it. This evening the focus was getting both of us fed and in bed at a decent hour. The one thing that I do love about life, in general, is that tomorrow is a new day to start over and try again.