Push the Button.

You know when I thought about having children, there was so much to be frightened of and nervous about.

Will the baby be OK? Will it be healthy..? All the absolutely normal worries that any mother or father will have whilst they are waiting for their unborn baby. Not just their first .. but every one.

Something that crossed my mind a lot with my first pregnancy was the way in which I would manage to parent.

It’s no secret to those that know me well, that I have quite a fiery temper on occasion. It’s not something I struggle with in a ‘worrying’ way … only something I occasionally struggle to contain when something (or someone) really pushes my buttons. I have to be pushed, a lot, to lose my temper.. but there’s no mistaking it when it’s there.

I have particular buttons.. I don’t know exactly what they are… but there is something particularly button-pushing about 2 year olds ….. and that happily coincides with a life where you just don’t get enough sleep.

This leaves me at a point where I am possibly not the most patient of parents.

I have this tendency to want to physically hit out when I am really pushed by children. Well not children. My child. I have inherited this … or acquired this from my parents … I know that.

My mum really struggled to keep her hands to herself when she was provoked and I often got a slap round the legs, arm or occasionally to the face if I was being particularly annoying or just if she was feeling so inclined in that particular temper for whatever reason.

I always remember thinking at the time – of my parents’ parenting style – that there were things I would never do.

I think on the whole I have little to complain about. I grew up in a lovely house, in a nice village with good schooling and friends. They made a lot possible for me that others just do not get. I was not battered, nor was I tortured, or bullied or abused nor have I ever suffered any kind of serious wrong doing at the hands of my parents.

Clearly, there are plenty who are not this lucky. I read only the other day about a mother somewhere in America who, daily sold her daughters to men, with what I can only imagine were horrendous consequences. Why some people even have children bewilders me.

On the whole.. I believe my folks did an OK job. None of us are murderers. We’re not evil people. We’re all capable of having positive relationships with others. We are all independent, financially and also emotionally. However.. there were things I silently vowed I would not be. I would not do.

I would not shout uncontrollably at tiny things. I would not fly off the handle at insignificant incidences and go on and on shouting and shouting. Beyond usefulness or reason.
I would not look for fights, provoke them at hard times, or hold grudges against my children for things that did not go my way. I would never make it all about me.
I would never make them feel like they couldn’t come to me with absolutely anything. I would make sure they knew I was their friend. I could be trusted. I would support them and I would look after them.. at all costs. There would be loyalty between our unit. They would come first.

But it’s actually having children .. that I see the feelings I said I would never have.. those awful feelings and imaginings of violence and the need to shout at them because they just.won’t.stop.talking.for.one.second… or do as they’re told and PUT.THAT.DOWN! or Don’t TOUCH it’s HOT!

Tipping food off their spoon all over the table .. down themselves.. while half of you says it doesn’t matter.. the other half is looking at yet another load of washing…

It is frustrating.

It’s really very terrifying to admit to strangers that you are capable of imagining whacking your child. There are times when I am actually visualising it when she’s doing something that’s pushing those buttons.

Her new thing is walking deliberately slowly, right in front of you, when she knows you are trying to get past her. That’s the very thing that makes me want to pick her up and chuck her across the room.

I once read something somewhere that Miriam Stoppard had written. She said all children push us to the limits. Babies push us to our extremes. They are frustrating and beyond frustrating. It is not abnormal to imagine harming your child. It is only abnormal to do it.

I take great comfort from that statement and it goes through my mind very often when I’m dealing with Rowan. I am not abnormal. I don’t think I’m abnormal. Sometimes I don’t like her.

I don’t want to see her at those moments. But not really because I don’t like her but because I want to remove the possibility of smacking her when I really don’t want to parent in that way. For whatever silly reason it is that she’s annoying me.

I don’t hit my kids. I don’t actually think there is anything fundamentally wrong with a well intentioned attention-grabbing slap that stops them either harming themselves or stops them from harming others…

But. My parents did hit. And I want to. I desire it. I just don’t actually do it. BUT I see Rowan with that desire. If she think she’s in trouble .. she whacks her own legs. Smacks herself. She’s only been smacked such a few times and actually not for such a long time. But she has copied it. She has that ’snap’ temper. I can see it in her. She shouts out and she lashes out at one particular child. Although – weirdly… never at anyone else?!

I don’t judge people who parent in that way. I just don’t want to do it. We have only really resorted to smacking in situations where she doesn’t listen…  to her possible physical detriment & potential danger.

My main focus as a parent is to bring up two children as clear thinking, dependable, sensible, loving, caring, independent, intelligent women. And so much more.

Nevermind the few that go so obviously wrong… how does anyone get through parenting without screwing them up with your own shit?