May 10, 2013

All parents know that raising children means experiencing a series of stages – stages that consistently barrel into your life one after the other – and along that journey are stages all parents fervently hope pass them by. It’s often wishful thinking, but sometimes we do get lucky – for example I didn’t suffer too much of the temper tantrum stuff – however the reality is, most of the time we don’t get bloody lucky. Instead, these growing up stages come crashing through our lives like tidal waves of emotional shit, and all we can do is smile and remember: resist persist. But it’s definitely not easy. I am now in one of the least appealing stages – the one I desperately hoped to skip – and that is the “I hate you Mum” stage, closely followed by the “I’m so angry with you Mum” stage – awesome. And yes, I completely appreciate that it might be hard to imagine my two angelic cherubs ever saying such hurtful things…. The first couple of times it felt as though a big sharp dagger was being plunged into my heart – cruel little bastards. And then I just got over it, because well, you just do. These days I usually respond with something classy like: Oh well, you’ll get over it; Pull your head in; Who died and made you king?; or Well if you don’t hate me sometimes darling, I won’t be doing a very good job as your Mum now will I? I am definitely working on the creativity of my responses, but the truth is, it usually leaves me a bit bereft of words. The most bizarre part is it often has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’ve actually done. Fair enough, I’m being a grumpy bitch, I understand it if they hate me then. I sometimes hate me then too. But most of the time, it’s because some other little angel has hurt their feelings and the best person to take it out on is Mum. Awesome. Or they’re feeling embarrassed because they fell over in front of someone, and Mum gets it for that too. Or something else equally charming. Jax is also offering a double-bonus during this stage and that is his ability to get angry and stay angry. This week I started reading the boys a book before bed. They then decided to play with their toys. No problem, if that’s how they want to spend pre-bed time, I’m cool with that, but when I turned the light off, all hell broke loose. Jax demanded I read a book to him and I said “no mate, you made your choice to play with toys and now it’s time for bed.” Well the tears and the anguish – “crikey mate, calm down. You’ve got to accept responsibility for the choices you make. That’s life darls.” He didn’t calm down and when I went in for my final five minute ‘how was your day’ conversation, he turned away and ignored me. I went back in three times to try and make friends, but he didn’t give me an inch. I absolutely hated him going to sleep still feeling angry with me – that hurt. Of course, in the morning, it was all over. That’s the beauty of kids, they just get over bollocks. So here I am, in the middle of this storm. It will pass, it always does, and then something else will come along and kick me in my emotional arse. Why exactly do we have children again? Yours, without the bollocks Andrea