Parenting Sucks 95% of the Time.
When you become a parent, you are never fully prepared for the amount of utter shit you’re going to go through. No one is like “ Here is an a custom made manual for raising your terrible child, please don’t listen to those goodie-two-shoe moms, who bleach their hair and write a book about their kids that have no mental, emotional, or handicap of any sort, and also listen and respond to punishment, and will ultimately make you feel like less of a parent because their parenting style isn’t working for you” .
Look, I don’t mean to sound bitter -- I mean, I am bitter, but that is besides the point -- but it is disheartening when you put so much into taking care of something that you gave life to, or watch someone who you love with your whole heart and gave life to that child just be belittled by said child to the point of tears.
Hi, my name is Tara and I adopted a child. I then got married to my wife Sarah, who had 2 biological children. Our children are now 8, 8 and 3.
The ‘Oldest’ is my adopted child-- We will call her Mal. Mal had watched me go through a not-okay relationship, and she was often left to be raised by my mom, because of said relationship. I wasn’t ready to be her parent, my ex at the time grew bitter because I adopted her and didn’t want to be a mother at all, and I was pressured by my family to do the adoption. Now that I am older, wiser and am out of that not-okay relationship, I have dived into being the Mom I should of been the entire time. Mal knows she is loved, she knows is cared for. I will always live with the regret of not stepping up sooner, because she is such a neat kid and full of love and heart. She is sensitive and emotional -- just like me -- and she is eager to please. But, she also can be a little jerk-head. She lied because she doesn’t want to get in trouble and then went caught, she cries because she doesn’t know wither to feel bad she lied or feel bad that she got caught. She is also known to push the rules, thinking that she is a parent herself ( because she had to grow up so much fast [my fault]) and she can get away with it. Which, she can’t. She can try. But, she can’t.
Upon meeting and marrying my wife, Sarah, I was blessed to become the co-parent to two beautiful little girls.
The youngest, we will call her Ellie, is 3 and we call her the ‘warden’. She is hysterically sassy and bossy and think she runs the house. Sarah is a stay at home mom and is often kept in place by The Warden, who is full of demands and request. But, mostly she just wants Sarah’s phone to play on, because she needs to watch the videos she can watch on the TV on the smaller screen that she can just shove closer to her face. She screams, because she likes to hear herself scream and likes things done her way. She is also very, very smart for a 3 year old, she has a good use of words and can carry on full conversations without skipping a beat -- well, until she gets distracted
The oldest of her two and the middle of all 3 girls, we will cal her Ari, is spunky, funny and has giant heart. She fun loving, goofy and just likes to be the ‘life of the party’. She also has ODD( Oppositional Defiant Disorder ), possibly ADHD and possibly on the spectrum for Autism. But ADHD and Autism are possibilities, the ODD is very, very real and very, very difficult to understand. Ari can be cruel with her words, and it is like she is a different person when she goes through her ‘fits’. She will say mean and hateful things to my wife, things to just cut her and cut her deep. She can also get into physical fits, where she will lash out, bite, kick, scratch and hit because she isn’t getting her way. It is funny to say she has a big heart and then follow up with the description of one of her fits ; but that is what happens. And it can be moments apart. She is dancing, having a blast in the living room, making us all laugh making sure she includes her sisters into the fun, but then she will see something as unfair and flip her shit. I have held my wife many of nights as she cried herself to sleep because of the abuse from her, I myself, have also cried and made to feel unwelcome. But, the next moment, she is back to her funny, spunky self -- LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED. Which, is just as frustrating.
We have Emotional, Oppositional and Bossy. Which, I can tell you, is very, very difficult to manage that whole range of emotions that come with it.
This is where we come with the whole “Parenting Sucks 95% of the time”, because it does. You have this small human, which on most cases, you push out of your vagina, feed, love and cherish this little ball of poop and tears and watch them grow and develop. And sometimes, despite all the love and affection you give them, does not control how they turn out. They scream, they cry, the hate and say nasty things, for example, Ellie’s favorite thing to scream at me when I am trying to discipline her is “ Well, I’m not your mom anymore!!”. They is usually met with a “You never were my mom to begin with, so I think I’ll be okay”. But, I know what she means-- she means that I am not her mom anymore, because she is mad at me. And that sucks. I have watched Mal break the rules, get in trouble and then just.. break down and cry herself into snot bubbles. And I have watched Ari drag my wife’s emotions through all of the mud and then turn around and blame it all on Sarah, which breaks her down more.
We have had to make very difficult sacrifices, one of those being sending Ari to live with her biological father, as her behavior was only spiraling out of control to the point of being a danger to us, to her and to her sisters. That decision nearly broke my wife into millions of pieces that couldn’t be put back together. I cannot tell you how many nights she cried, feeling like a failure because we came to the conclusion that Ari needed one-on-one parenting that would couldn’t provide having 2 other children. We had to admit that her father could get a better handle on her then we could, because he was able to deflect the verbal abuse better and can understand where she is coming from because he suffers from the same mental battles --But no one prepares you for that, you know? I have had to watch my wife pack up her first born child's stuff in a bag and hand it off to a guy she barely likes, because he can handle Ari better. And I don’t want you sitting there judging. This woman did everything in her god given powers to help her little girl through her emotions and swings. She has done the therapy, the psychiatrist, the homeopathic treatments, the hard prescriptions, and just good old fashion love and parenting. None of it worked for her, for us.
95% of the time, it f**king sucks. But, that 5% though..
But, guys. That 5%. That 5% makes it all worth it. Well, most of it worth it. Like the time Sarah and I surprised all 3 girls with a trip to go see their Aunt in New Jersey. Next to the beach. In Wildwood. Like, that weekend was the best weekend every -- I mean, we had a few moments, like me running after Ari, in the dark, lost my glasses because she was having an episode. But, outside of that, we buried the kids in the sand and gave them mermaid tails, we hunted for sea shells and found hermit crabs. We swam and played and ate and it was so much fun. Or, even the simple things, like when I walk in the door and I get bombarded with “Mama Tara is home!!” and all the hugs. The random acts of love they give me. Holding my hand, kisses, hugs. When we can all lay in the bed together, giggling over dumb shit. Or all having a ‘family night’ playing games, or doing crafts... That 5% right there. That makes the hell we go through, ultimately, worth it.
It isn’t all roses and sunflowers, guys and gals. But, it is finding the moments that will carry you on to the next day. I hope that you have or will have children that will listen to you and follow the rules. But if you don’t, I hope you have moments you can cling onto, and you can write about, smile about and share with those around you.
It is worth it. It is hard, it sucks, but it is worth it.
