While I'm all too aware of my faults, I used to think I was a fairly capable person...until I had children. Then I realized that there was a great deal I didn't know. I used to run a before and after school daycare program at an elementary school and was pretty good with the kids there, so I thought for sure I'd be able to handle my own children. Little did I realize, my job was working with those kids at the elementary school. As a working parent one goes to a paying job all day and comes home exhausted, and then still has to deal with one's own children. I love my kids, and I'd never want to change anything about my family, but I feel pretty incompetent quite frequently these days.
My daughter is leaving on a trip to Europe for nearly two weeks on Monday. Last evening we were talking about it and she said she's not feeling any anxiety about it because it still doesn't feel real. I told her she doesn't need to feel any anxiety because it's a tour run by an educational group with three of her teachers as leaders. She doesn't have to worry about anything, all the details are taken care of for her. She agreed and seemed fine. Then at dinner last night she spilled her drink which she found incredibly embarrassing, and that was all it took to send her into a very dark place. The rest of the evening was filled with tears, especially after she got her group lists for the trip and realized she wouldn't be with her closest friends or her first choice of teacher. She does get to room with those friends on several nights, but oh man, the group assignment was DEVASTATING! Of course I think she should be flattered, because I'm sure she's seen as a steady child who can handle any assignment. But she wasn't in a mental place for me to help her go there last night. So she went to bed still crying, and I felt like an utter failure as a parent.
My son (who will be turning 10 tomorrow) was a complete basket case for the final two weeks of the school year. He was always mad at either my husband or me for something, and it was generally a totally irrational reason. We even dealt with a suspension from school at that time because he was such a mess about the year ending that he was making horrendous choices. Now that we're one week into the summer break, he seems to have calmed back down, thank goodness. But again, I don't know if I'm handling everything correctly and properly balancing empathy and support with guidance on how to make different choices. I'm not sure that there's an experience out there more humbling than parenting.
The other day I came home with my son when my daughter had been watching one of her favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption*, so my son caught the very tail-end of the movie (we won't let him watch this movie yet). If you've seen the movie, you know that there's a scene where one of the men carves "Brooks was here" into the wooden beam in his room. Apparently my son saw that and it inspired him to carve his name with "was hear" into the beautiful wooden ledge in his room. Not only am I frustrated that we're now going to have to replace that at some point, but he didn't even spell it properly! He informed us that it wasn't vandalism if you were defacing your own property. Then I had to explain that he's not the one paying the mortgage on the house, and that someday he'll turn 18 and move out.
The good news is that as of this afternoon, everyone seems to be back on track. Both of the kids are out with friends, and my husband is at a happy hour with his co-workers. So I'm sitting in a quiet house, all by myself, listening to the gentle, soothing rain falling. Maybe now I can start to rebuild my self-confidence that has been pretty battered by my seeming inability to properly parent.
* In case you didn't know, this movie was based on a story called Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King from his book Different Seasons. He wrote a story for each season in this book, and three of the stories have been made into movies. His spring story is titled Apt Pupil and the movie shares the name. Shawshank is the summer story. His fall story is called The Body and this is the story on which the movie Stand By Me is based. To my knowledge there has never been a movie inspired by his winter story, The Breathing Method. But if you haven't read this book yet, I highly recommend it. None of the stories have many supernatural elements, they're just really good stories. I didn't really care for Apt Pupil, but you may have a stronger stomach for that sort of thing than I do. But the gentleman's club that he created in The Breathing Method is so vibrant and creepy, I keep hoping that someday he'll write a story all about the club.
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