The Tug
Earlier this week we were getting ready for school and my eight year old asked, “Is it hard being a Mum sometimes?”. He’s my ‘noticer’ (look up Hands Free Revolution for further explanation!) and on mornings when I’m rushing around the house wearing a look of ‘this is all so bloody hard, every single day’ he sees it before I do. So in that moment I said yes without thinking, I said “yes it is when the kids don’t listen and make everything as difficult as possible…now go and find your shoes.” I said the words and watched them fall out of my mouth wishing I could catch them. Since then I have been thinking about that question and about how I could do better to answer it. Here’s what I’ve come up with.
The hardest part of parenting for me, at this time, is this. I want above all other things for my kids to be happy but I also want them to be ok. It’s the times when these two things contradict each other that I struggle. When what I see making them happy in the short term needs to be balanced out with what I need to teach them about life and the world. When they spend mornings playing, making up games and laughing together. They’re rested and fresh and it’s the perfect time for it but they need an education and a job to be ok as adults, so we have to get ready for school. When they have dinosaur nuggets for dinner and we all sit at the table together for a meal. We are all happy in each others’ company but dinosaur nuggets every night won’t help their bodies or brains to grow healthily. When they are fascinated and intrigued by bugs and football and I watch them soaking up facts, ideas and stats. They are enjoying what they are learning but they have to do their homework to do well at school so we stop and insist they read their school books.
Today I dropped my youngest off at daycare for the second time. It’s a beautiful little centre and I could not be happier with it but when I say I’m leaving she says “no stay”. Another tug, another internal struggle. She’s two and she wants to be with me every waking (and sleeping) moment. I want her to be happy. I love her. I also want to be the best mother I can be for her. I spend so much time asking her to hold on or wait for me to finish something and then when I am with her my head is still so full of other things. Having a morning to do those jobs and clear the things in my head means that when I am with her I can really be with her. It’s better for both of us. It also means that she is learning slowly and gradually to be ok without me.
When we moved to Kununurra we had a two year and a half year old and a very active eight month old. I basically had two toddlers and six months in they started one day a week in a family day care. I needed some time to get things done so I wasn’t constantly fobbing them off to get it half done while they were there. Neither of them had ever been left with anyone other than their grandparents. We were lucky to have help in Perth but now we had chosen to live 3500km away and family wasn’t an option. So once a week I would drive 10kms out of town, drop them off kicking and screaming with a lovely and very capable carer and then cry the whole way home. Every time I hear Mumford and Sons, which was always in the car CD player at the time, I feel it. That tug, they want to be with me, they’re happiest with me but…we all need this day to be ok. They need to learn that they can be ok without me for a few hours and I need this few hours to be the best I can for them for all of the other hours of the week.
Everyone has their own situations that tug at them. Sometimes there’s more choice than others. Sometimes we have to be away from them to work to pay the bills but it is still a case of this option will make them happy but this option is what they (or I) need to be ok. Being OK is equally as important as being happy. I have to acknowledge that we are pretty lucky to even be able to consider happiness compared to years gone by when the hardest part of having kids was literally keeping them alive with very limited resources. We are all trying to do the best we can with what we have. We are all trying to make sure our kids are ok and where possible happy. This morning my baby had a few tears but now she’s playing and learning new things in a new environment and when I pick her up this afternoon my head will be clearer for having this time. This afternoon I might say yes to jumping on the trampoline, because I have ticked a few things off my list, and that will make her happy!
