I'm laying in my bed... tears streaming out of my eyes. Snow is falling outside, and I'm hiding from having yet another epic meltdown where I plead with my daughter to take care of her stuff. This after trying to find the three-pack of gloves she got in her christmas stocking, because she wants to play in the snow, only to find half of her gifts she got just 2 weeks ago stuffed under her bed.
Gifts I stood in long lines to get for her.
Gifts we sacrificed money to make sure she got.
Stuffed under a bed next to miscellaneous crumbs and garbage.
Next to the box of floss I've asked her twenty times to stop taking out of the bathroom, but she keeps using to make some sort of contraption for the $60 super rare Skylander that she really really wanted for Christmas.
Next to a craft bottle that's been filled with my $20 shampoo that I have (again!) asked her REPEATEDLY not to use or play with.
And the frustration is building.... it hurts. It all hurts. It hurts because I feel like all I do is give and give and give. I cook. I clean. I fold laundry that is being washed for the 7th time but hadn't been actually worn because it was never put away to begin with and instead it was thrown into a pile on the floor. I work hard to make meals that everyone will eat, only to have it pushed around a plate with a look of disgust ruining all of my effort. I parse out enough money to make sure all of the kids have chargers for their xbox controllers so nobody is crying... but half of them are stuffed under the bed... so crying happens anyway.
And maybe some of it... a lot of it... is that daddy really isn't ever big bad daddy. I respect my husband... I do, and he does a great job. But, really, in reality, he's not the one who makes her life happen. Not one of those christmas gifts was planned or wrapped by him. His money went into purchasing them, but he didn't stand in line... he didn't wrap them...and many of them he didn't even know existed until she unwrapped them that morning. When she takes the floss, he doesn't need to go and buy new floss. She doesn't take his shampoo because his shampoo is in another room. He doesn't care that a shirt is being washed, dried and folded for the 7th time that hasn't been worn because he doesn't a) wash, b) dry, c) fold and d) pay attention to what she's wearing.
I don't know that the 7th washing of a sweater in the middle of July would raise a red flag to him.
And sometimes, I watch him interact with her and I'm so jealous, because it feels like she just LIKES him more. Daddy is easy-going and has fun and daddy isn't consumed with making sure these things get done because, frankly, daddy isn't the one who has to take care of these things if they don't get done. Daddy never gets asked when dinner is going to be ready, and if he was, PB&J or McDonalds is a perfectly acceptable response because that would happen so rarely.
And my husband gets it... he does. He knows this is a problem and it's part of the reason he's a great husband. He made dinner one night, and she pushed it around the plate. I think he knows how it feels, and I think he gets that I do it all the time and why it hurts. He wants to make it better. But, the problem is that it feels like... like I don't get the luxury of watching someone else go through it and only experiencing it sometime. This is my everyday... for almost 10 years. I'm spent.
And here is the part that makes me the biggest, baddest mommy. I think my kid is kinda an asshole.
So, big bad mommy is going to define asshole. An asshole is someone who doesn't care about anyone's needs but their own. An asshole is a person who claims to care, but the moment you are out of their eyeline, you are out of their thoughts. And asshole is a person who takes everything you have to give and has the gall to expect more. An asshole is a person who doesn't care about the time, money and effort you have invested in something, it is there for their taking.
So, when my kid has asked if she could use a container to mold bricks of snow, and my husband complies and gets her a container, the world is fine. When he says to her very specifically " Now, you need to bring this back when you are done playing outside", the world is fine. When, two hours after she has come inside from playing in the snow and I go to find the container still sitting in the yard, along with the snow shovel and several other things that she has determined can just be left in the middle of the yard... then she's an asshole.
And when I look at her and say " Didn't daddy tell you that you couldn't leave these in the yard?" and she says " Yes" and I ask " Then why did you leave them in the yard" and she says " I didn't think about it.". Yeah- she's an asshole!
'My parents need something... fuck them'... that's not what she's thinking. She's not thinking about us at all. It's worse than being mean, she's freaking apathetic. When she takes the 100th container of floss out of the bathroom, the 99 times I've asked her to stop doing that don't even EXIST.. the words, the effort, the time... none of that even exists to her. She has confirmed this... she doesn't even THINK about it... that's what she says why I ask her why!
And what really really kills me is that almost every moment of my life is consumed with thinking about her. There isn't a store that I go to that I don't think about what she would like to have. There isn't a moment when I look at a clock when I'm not calculating when my kid is going to need something ( 40 minutes until I have to pick up the kid from school. I have an hour to go to the store before she needs to go to that birthday party. I have 15 minutes to take a shower before I have to wake her up for school.) Seriously.... I never get to forget about something she needs! I don't get to just not think about her and leave the house and do what I want and not pick her up from school and not have her lunch ready and not make sure she gets to that birthday party. But every single simple request that I make... gone... nonexistent to her. So, yeah, it's not a "Fuck you mommy"... but dammit, it FEELS like that.
Like, can't you just think about what I need a little bit?
And here I am again... big bad mommy, because I'm pretty sure that GOOD mommies are able to stuff down every ounce of selfishness, they never expect their kid to think about a grownup's needs, and they certainly don't think their kid is an asshole.
So, instead of living up to expectation of being a big bad mommy and yelling, I'm hiding away in my bedroom, because I really just don't want to.
I don't want to be the big bad mommy who yells because I'm the big bad mommy who has her feelings hurt. And, maybe, even worst, I don't want to be the big bad mommy who created this asshole because I was trying so fucking hard to be the GOOD mommy who gives until it hurts.
Like... those Pinterest Moms who make personalized glitter water bottles for their perfect kid to take to their dance class.... do your feelings get hurt when you find that water bottle left in the middle of the back yard? When you've spent 3 hours making a customized superhero cape for your kid, does it crush your soul when you find it waded up into a ball with a half-eaten candy cane stuck to it? Or are you just so perfect that your perfect kids would never treat your effort with that much disrespect?
And what I want is one of two things: either I want my kid to care more or I want to stop caring. Either one is acceptable.
I'm exhausted. My Snowy Saturday is a bust and I just want to collapse under the pile of parental defeat I feel right now.
BLAHHHHHH!!!
