What About ME?
As children we mainly think about ourselves, its just the level of maturity our brains are at. The thing is, it is not something that people grow out of so to speak. We do grow to a point where we could feel compassion for others and so we can choose to think of their needs before our own, but more often then not, we want what WE want.
Until you become a parent. If you are a good parent you will realize that your child's needs are most important because they do not yet possess the ability to fulfill those needs without your help. So where do your needs go? Well obviously they don't go anywhere, they just take a back-seat to your children's needs. If a family is whole, then the amount of energy that is able to be given to a child is much more, and the needs of the parents get easier to fulfill as well. As a single parent though, getting your own needs met is incredibly hard and often tricky to see.
You go along day after day doing what needs to be done and thinking to yourself that you are meeting your needs. But there is a wide difference between what needs to be done and what YOU need.
After a while it starts to feel like you are always doing everything for everyone else, and no one gives a fuck about what you need. Then one day you really need to have some time for YOU, and your child is pushing and whining for what they want. You try to reason with them, you feel guilty even for not giving them what they want, and yet feel angry that you are given a hard time when you try giving to yourself. What do you do then? Well some parents get angry and take it out on the kids, through physical or emotional abuse... this still happens widely. When I get to this place, I go to my own room and cry.
After a while it starts to feel like you are always doing everything for everyone else, and no one gives a fuck about what you need. Then one day you really need to have some time for YOU, and your child is pushing and whining for what they want. You try to reason with them, you feel guilty even for not giving them what they want, and yet feel angry that you are given a hard time when you try giving to yourself. What do you do then? Well some parents get angry and take it out on the kids, through physical or emotional abuse... this still happens widely. When I get to this place, I go to my own room and cry.
Its better then being abusive, tears release stress hormones and it gives me just enough time to myself to think of a better approach. If my partner was here, he would give me the back-up and strength to do what I need to for myself, and would step in when my son is pushing too far. Unfortunately he works three hours away and I don't see him often enough this time of year. So I get to be Single Mom!!
All I can recommend is this.. remember to breathe.
posted by clothosfate @ 1:55 PM
2 Comments:
At 7:42 PM,
The Zombieslayer said…
Good post. I've always said the two most important jobs are the parent and the teacher. Both are taken for granted in today's society and both are overworked.
I'm telling you, having one kid with two parents is hard work. I can't imagine not having my wife around and being a single parent. I think it would be more than double the work.
At 7:21 AM,
clothosfate said…
It sure feels that way sometimes, and I even have a great kid!
I have a friend who is a single mother, her husband died of a heart attack when their son was 3, although their relationship was very rocky even before then.
Her relationship with her son is terrible. He completly runs the show, and of course since he's only 8, his show is not very considerate of his mother. I help her out all the time, we are very close and in fact my son and her son are strongly bonded, ever since the death of his father they consider themsleves brothers.
I don't beleive in leaving their problems to themselves, I believe that we all have a responsibility to help raise the children of our communities, or families. I know that our help (my son's and mine) is invaluable to them.
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