The Five Most Painful Words..
I ever heard in my entire life.......
"Well, I never WANTED kids."
These words were spoken to me almost a year ago. And they still hurt as much today as they did then.
I know I need to forgive, I know I need to forget.... but damn, it's HARD!!
(part of the problem is that I HATE the fact that apparently feeling this way is justification for only wanting to do the 'easy and fun stuff' with the boys..)
posted by Petra @ 9:30 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
It is also my experience that men only want to do the easy and fun stuff with the kids.
Yesterday I said to my husband, who had been doing yard work for hours and looked ready to fall over, "Hey, why don't you let me do this for a while so you can come in and cool off..." He said, "No, this is my responsibility... besides, you need to take care of Charlie."
((record scratching)) Excuse me? There are SO many things wrong with that response.
Priorities, responsibilities, tantrums (of the adult male type), yeah, good times. Good times.
I found myself debating most of the day whether or not I was going to add to this. And finally I thought what the hell.. maybe somebody else will get something out of this.
It is profoundly sad to me that some would rather 'keep doing yard work and keel over from heat exhaustion' than learn how to relate and take care of their child (here you would insert 'spent an afternoon with the nastiest chemicals you can imagine to clean off a boat' for 'yard work').
Granted, I've had many, many, many, many, many more hours of practice in how to be a parent to these two wonderful boys of mine (and I mean a true parent, not a big goofy playmate, or an always popular "Disney parent" with whom anything goes). But how the heck do people think I learned this parenting thing? By doing, NOT by avoiding. By making mistakes, by getting messy (and trust me, there are days that I am NOT exactly popular with my two because of the decisions I make.. but at the end of the day they DO know that I love them more than anything, just like they KNOW who's in charge here).
I have been told over and over again that I 'need to be patient', that I 'need to give him time', that 'it takes a while to process all of this and figure out how to deal with all of this', and that 'most men just aren't wired to be involved in the hard stuff' (my comeback to that last one was that most *men*, if this is true - and I am still enough of a dreamer to believe that this is NOT true -, then need to grow up and deserve a good swift kick in the you-know-whats if they refuse to).
But exactly who long is one supposed to be patient, how much time is one supposed to give? Truth be told, my patience ran out a long time ago (looking back I think I realized about 4 years ago that I was on my own in all of this when in response to me being absolutely devastated after leaving a DAN Dr. appointment in which I learned that, in addition to gluten and dairy, there were 19 (!!) other foods that would have to come out of Salamander's diet, the response was 'Oh, well, I'm sure you'll figure it out. I have to get back to work now'.)
For the record, things are OK between the boys and their dad now, but that's because the time they spent together is limited (a few hours here and a few hours there). And if there are situations where it's going to be more than a few hours (like when I went to A1 in Chicago), I make sure most of the hard work is already taken care of (food, supplements, school schedules, play dates, etc) and I make sure my usual back-up care givers are here to help take care of the boys (but I'll be honest, it sooo pisses me off when I then, every time I call home to talk to my boys, get the "this taking care of the kids stuff is so easy, I really don't understand why you can't find more hours to get actual paying work done. The boys don't take THAT much time.")
Yeah sure, things are by now very manageable on a good day (and it's because I work my ass off to keep things running smoothly).
But a really funny thing happens, at the first sign of it looking like the boys are entering another rough period ... yup, indeed... "something just came up that MUST be taken care of right now, so I have to go now."
Bye, whatever...
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