I Love My Mom (But I’m Not Afraid To Choke Her)
The single-parent is charged with many varied and vast duties. I get up in the morning and have to get my two young kids going. My youngest can’t even dress herself yet. My oldest seems to get sidetracked somewhere between dressing and brushing teeth and often ends up playing with the cats. Meanwhile, I’m getting my sorry-butt in the shower, shaving, and trying to find a pair of matching-BLANKING socks. I get the kids fed, and pack lunches and we’re off to school or daycare, or just daycare, or school and Grandma’s, or any other crazed-combination of destinations. Now, I get to fight rush-hour traffic to work.
I work a full day, then run a pickup-route that corresponds to whichever combination of drop-offs I had in the morning (all the while hoping I can remember where the hell my kids are). We get home and feed the cats, have some dinner, get whatever needs to get done (yeah, right), and hopefully have a few minutes to play, watch a movie, or read together. Then it’s baths and bedtime for the kids and maybe some time for me to clean up the piles of clothes, clean, and so on. Keep in mind that while this average-day is going on, I’m constantly breaking up fights, attending to boo-boos, trying to give individual, focused attention, and I am dead-ass tired because I stayed up too late posting on this site.
So sometimes, sometimes I get a bit tired and flustered – stressed. That was how I was today when I nearly put my hands around my mother’s neck and squeezed… hard.
“Dan, your father and I struggled all the time. Do you think it was easy for us?”
I flat-out told her I would choke her if she continued. You see, mom was a stay-at-home mom. She had time. There WERE enough hours in the day to tidy up the house, do laundry, cook meals, and be a caring and focused parent. When she got stressed out, Dad stepped it up and maybe took us out for a while. When one of them was slipping, the other picked up the slack. When one of them was looking for support, the other was there for support. They made a great team and excellent parents.
Sometimes I wish I had a team… or maybe an army.
You are so right on with the hardships of a single parent. Rarely is there time for oneself, and sometimes the grip begins to slip with no one to help hold. The sacrifices are great, but well worth it. Sometimes it is a good thing to vent.
Hi U/C!
It is absolutely worth it. The time I have with my kids is well worth all overwhelming moments (as yesterday was for me – lol).
I have great kids and my parents are really cool too. Sometimes I get frustrated because I can’t give more to my kids. I feel that they’ve been cheated out of a lot of the normalcy I had growing up, but we do pretty well with what we have.
Thanks for stopping in…
I hope your reply was “Mom, Did I say you didn’t struggle. Did I say it was easy for you? Would you just listen to me for once here.”
Being a single parent comes with a lot of challenges no doubt. I hope you make time to go out with adults at least a couple times a month.