I'm not sure when it happened, exactly. I didn't used to obsess over my parenting all that much. I'm far from a perfect mother--I'm disorganized, and sometimes impatient, and often over extended. I crave peace and quiet much more than I could ever hope to actually get it, I often have to run to the dryer to find my children's clothes for that day, and I happen to think that if I make home cooked meals involving vegetables five nights a week, that's pretty good.
And I'm OK with that. Pretty much all of it. At least most of the time.
Because these children--the ones who drive me crazy--know that they are loved, and cared for, and cherished. They know that we will get them to school (even when they would prefer that we didn't), and help them with their homework (but not as much as they would like), and that we make sure they have a warm house, and food to eat, and clothes to wear (even if they're rarely folded neatly in their dresser drawers). They also know that their family is not picture perfect, and that it is often loud, and chaotic, and yes, at times, insane. But in spite of that--or maybe because of it--they know how to laugh, and how to let things go, and how to improvise. And for that, I am grateful. Even if the laughter involves milk coming out of their nose at the dinner table. Even when the thing they're letting go of is their underwear, as they drop it out of their bedroom window, because they wanted "to fly it like a kite". Even when the improvisation involves making a "picture frame" with magic marker on their bedroom wall. I'm grateful for all of that because, in spite of the aspects of these adventures that drive me crazy, they are proof that we have children who are happy, secure, and joyful.
And some part of me--a rather significant part, fortunately--knows that, at the end of the day, that is what matters.
But then it started happening. I started reading. I love to read. In fact, I love nothing more than to get in bed early and reading for a couple hours before failing asleep. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often, for obvious reasons (and if they're not obvious, re-read the above paragraph). So I read here and there. I scroll through facebook, or click on a link, or browse through a blog. It's always interesting to see what my friends are reading, and what inspires them, and what entertains them. And since many of my friends are parents, they're often sharing things related to parenting.
Uplifting things.
Informative things.
Encouraging things.
And also, things that are making us completely and totally neurotic.
Things that talk about the dangers of non organic produce, GMO foods, aspartame, sugar, sodium, MSG, plastics, too much screen time, not enough down time, inconsistent parenting, global warming, spoiling our kids, neglecting our kids, coddling our kids too much, not coddling our kids enough, too much texting, too much yelling, not enough discipline, and not paying close enough attention to what our kids are learning at school.
All of which is totally valid, of course. To varying degrees. To varying people. In varying circumstances.
But, as everyone knows, those articles aren't addressing the varying degrees, or the varying people, or the varying circumstances. They are addressing you.
And me.
And at least for me, that information stays in my head, tucked away in some atrophied corner of my brain until something triggers it to come to the forefront of my mind. I might be in the grocery store, at nine o'clock at night, in jeans that are damp from someone splashing me during a bath, when it occurs to me that I can't buy that case of bottled water, because those bottles contain BPA, or BAP, or LSD. So I will stand there, searching the aisle--in vain-- for water bottles that don't contain BPA or any of those other things, because the article I read the day before told me we're all going to die if we drink water from bottles made from BPA.
And then I go home, disheartened that I have to give my kids water with chemicals in it, and I find two children-who I had put to bed half an hour before I went to the store--standing in the kitchen eating non organic granola bars.
Off of the floor.
I yell at them to get in bed right now. Yes, yell. Not scream. Not freak completely out. But yell. And then I glare at my husband who is watching football while his children eat non organic granola bars off the kitchen floor. And I thank him for helping. Of course, I'm not really saying thank you. I'm saying something kind of close to thank you. But he knows what I mean. And really, that is all that matters. And yet, the children have probably picked up on this communication pattern, and will take it into their own future relationships, which will no doubt end in divorce as a result of the fact that their mother said thank you to their father when that wasn't exactly what she meant.
Eventually, several threats later, the kids are in bed. (Everyone knows you shouldn't make threats unless you're going to follow through. So, if you feel that you have to tell your kids they're never watching TV again in order to get them to go to bed, make sure you never let them watch TV again. Ever. But get yourself some xanax. You'll need it since you won't have another moment of down time until they're eighteen). I'm putting our non organic, BPA containing groceries away, and thinking about how I just yelled at the kids. I mean, I yelled at them. To go to bed. An hour after I put them to bed in the first place. What is wrong with me? And at the same time I yelled at them, I was bringing non organic, BPA containing groceries into the house and watching them eat granola bars off the floor that could have bleach on it. Except that it doesn't, because I know how long it's been since I've cleaned that floor. Which means it has dirt on it. So, either way, two of my children just ate something really, really bad. And that's not even counting the non organic granola bar that probably has LSD in the wrapper.
And it dawns on me.
I totally suck.
And facebook, I blame you. It's bad enough that we have to be exposed to other peoples perfectly presented lives which some people seem to actually believe represent real life, or that we have to see the 17 layer cake that's an actual replica of Disney World that someone made for their child's six month birthday, but we also have a ridiculous amount of parenting advice shoved down our throats on a daily or weekly basis (yes, I know we all have the option of not reading. Some day I'll write a post about my impulse control issues).
It occurred to me recently that, pre internet, we had to actually go to a book store or library to find information about a particular parenting issue. Pre facebook, we had to google the specific information we were looking for. In other words, most of us had to have an actual problem before we chose to read about how to fix it.
Not anymore.
Now we can read all about the problems we have before we even know we have them.
There is, of course, a lot of good information to be stumbled upon, and as it happens, I do try to avoid BPA and LSD when it comes to my kids. I buy some things organic, I monitor screen time, I try not to let them lick the floor, and I try not to yell. Too much. In one day.
But there is also such a thing as information overload, and--for me at least--all of this parenting "advice" stays dormant in every underused crevice of my brain, until one over stimulated moment when it comes to life, shouting "You! The one feeding your kids non organic produce, and BPA, and dirt, while you yell at them to go to bed, and make threats to that you'll never carry through with, and speak sarcastically to their father, and text your friends before the kids are in bed. You, quite simply, suck".
Fortunately, in calmer moments, I know better.
I know that the truth goes more like this:
Parenting is hard.
Being completely and totally responsible for three little-ish people is exhausting.
Life is hard.
No one is perfect.
Kids are wonderfully, incredibly resilient.
Love is not all that matters. But it matters above all else.
No day is perfect. Some days are better than others. Some days are so far from perfect it's almost funny.
When things are almost funny, we laugh a lot. And pretty soon, we've convince ourselves that they really are funny.
At the end of the day, if everyone is warm, and fed, and at some point during the day was mostly dressed, I know that it was a good day.
And that is all that matters.
