I sat in the car crying literally sobbing {where the majority of my crying is done} having just screamed my heart out at the boys for not getting in the car quick enough to go to swimming lessons. B1 sat in the front. B2 and B3 sat in the back. B1 was crying.
Why are you crying I said to B1?
Because you scared me he said.
The sobbing from me got harder and the cry became uglier.
It was dark and hot in the car. I was tired and so it all came out. How I was scared that they had become frightened of me. I was so sorry that I scared him. Sorry that I yelled that I was a bad mum. I should have got everyone ready earlier I was sorry.
They sat all quiet and I could smell them. That kid smell.
You scare me when you cry mum not when you yell at me. I don’t like it when you cry I don’t like it when you are sad. I don’t like it when you yell either but that’s your job. My seven year old boy sat saying these words to me, I looking at him my head on the steering wheel.
But you are frightened of me I said to him.
No I am not he said firm.
I lifted my head from the steering wheel looked at him and said you’re not?
He repeated with the words No I am not and so I turned to his brothers sitting quietly in the back. What about you I said.
No said B2 and yes said B3.
Two out three aint bad I said.
Truth is I have had my less than perfect moments where in the ‘after throws’ of my tired tantrums my less than great decisions of spitting of venom I have thought that will bite me on the arse one day. I will be the reason they use drugs and beat their partner. I will be the reason they will be marking off the days in their cell wall. I will be the reason for them being ‘screwed up’. So I have for a long time lived with guilt not just of that but of everything right down to drinking three vodkas on the New Years Eve of 2010 and breastfeeding B1 and that’s the reason he is as quirky as he is and for the record it is not.
Since that moment two years ago in the car I have asked them various times are they scared of me to the point that I was like that desperate girl who says it so often to the man she desires in hope that one day he will slip up and say it to. Yet they never slipped up.
So the clincher came when my kids went to my parents in Darwin last year for ten days. Lying in bed they asked why do we have to go without you Mum?
So I can be the best parent because I don’t think I am.
My boys four, six and eight all in unison said but you are the best mum. We love you.
No I am not is what I said I remember because I was trying to fix the fairy lights on B1’s bed.
Yes you are they replied and pffft mother guilt was gone. Well maybe not pfft but a long slow drawn out fart but you get the picture.
So this is what I have discovered regarding mother guilt everyone gets it everyone even if it’s just for a spilt second. It’s what you do with it that guilt that counts. I can honestly say I no longer second guess my decisions regarding my boys I take full responsibility in what I am doing and now that they understand more and more I tell them constantly that I am doing the best job I can and have done. I will always do the best by them that I can even if they don’t agree. I tell them that just like them growing up being new to them so is being a parent to me and I thank {internally} to B1 for being patient with me. I admit to them I will mistakes but if I do I am sorry. So in telling them and I do on a regular basis {keeping that whole communication thing open} I don’t get mother guilt anymore and on the rare occasion that I get it I act on it. I figure it out because it shouldn’t be a wasted emotion other wise it will manifest into all sorts of useless rubbish. I don’t like waste not in food, money or now it seems emotion.
Like B3 has been a right mister this past week and so being a mister has been the last person I want to deal with. So I have pushed him to the side in terms of spending time with him. Have I felt guilty bet your bottom dollar initially I used the excuse I have been busy with my mum and B1 but I knew in my guilty heart I was taking the easy way out and so today I kept him home from school for two hours for one on one time. Did I feel guilty about school? No. It was two hours and his home life is reflective in his school work.
But the thing is since I stopped feeling guilty and second guessing my decisions regarding the boys I am a better parent in every way and I can honestly say a confident one to. I will make decisions that are wrong I’m not arrogant. I will behave badly occasionally but I’m human and I can say every single day I am doing the best I can do by my kids. And thats all any good parent can do. Is their best. However the by product of all this confidence and ability to use mother guilt in a productive way? Other people’s opinions of my parenting mean nothing to me; nothing with the exception of my husband and my kids because then it means everything which is when I get to say three out of three aint bad.
