This post was originally published in April 2013 and it still makes me sad. You can see the original post and comments here.
Overheard outside my local café last week:
“I have three kids and I hate all of them.”
Can someone please explain to me why this jack@$$ gets to have the privilege of being a parent when so many lovely people I know (including myself) don’t?
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s got you spitting nails this week?
And why does an idiot like that keep having kids? Why do people who abuse, and even kill their children able to have them? The Universe has a lot of explaining to do.
This is just about what I was thinking when fb friends were commenting on an article about how motherhood is one big F-u….basically how kids suck the life out of their mothers without any thanks. I really tried to look at as, well, at least I don’t have to go through all that, but what I am really thinking is, what I wouldn’t give to be in your position. On a related note, I am seriously backing off my facebook browsing…too many articles like this, back to school pics, baby announcements, fun family vacation photos. I just can’t take it any more!
Statements like this are just incomprehensible…so deplorable. But honestly, I am surrounded by just the opposite in my life: countless mothers in my family, friendship circle, and on Facebook, who appear unwaveringly passionate about their children and about being mothers. This always makes me happy for their children, and sometimes I love and admire these mothers, as people in my life, all the more for it. But it can hurt, of course. In truth, I know that mothering run the gamut from appalling to amazing, and mothers’ experiences are generally intense, multi-faceted, and complicated, in the best of cases.
That’s all I hear is how wonderful and fun children are, and how they can’t imagine life without them. I makes me feel so depressed that I wonder if I have anything in life to look forward to.
People who make these kind of statements really don’t think when they speak “. Right now (with schools back in session) it has been a little hard for me to visit my Facebook page. All the moms and dads posting pictures of their lovely children returning to school. It just gets to me and times like this remind me of what I don’t have an opportunity to experience. I will say I about lost my mind yesterday when at lunch I was driving in the neighborhood where I work (which is know for teen moms) and not only do I see a pregnant teen girl, but she is SMOKING! SERIOUSLY! That really just made me mad. These are the times I say, GOD, really!!
I wonder . . .
BIL and SIL were here this weekend. With their 7-1/2 yo, Z. SIL and her mother have spent most of this child’s life telling him what an amazing, sweet, cute, incredible, special person he is, and that everything he does is unique and marvelous and fascinating. He is a very smart boy, and can be delightful. But much of the time (largely I think because he gets away with so much) he thinks he is smarter than anyone else. He can be quite insufferable, whiney, manipulative, and with an attitude I can’t begin to describe. He blames other people for his actions (the adults were at fault for punishments rather than it being a consequence of HIS behavior).
I will say that in the year since their last visit, mama has implemented much better discipline tactics. However, I don’t see her being consistent and thus not much difference in Z’s behavior/attitude.
At one point, we were discussing how different people define words. (A different discussion from this, basically my definition of “work” is “pain and drudgery;” my hubby’s is “time + effort.”). I asked SIL her definition of “work.” She looked odd/guilty and eventually admitted the first thing that came to mind was Z. Personally, though I know it is hard to be consistent, I think she makes much more work for herself with him by being so inconsistent.
It would not be hard for me to hate Z. It is hard for me to be patient with him. SIL is raising a narcissist. I can’t help but think there are times she may hate this child too, and she works at covering this and her guilt with the oozy-gooey crap that makes it so much worse.
So, I wonder . . . How many of the mamas who hate their children have created those very monsters but will never admit it? I love the Agatha Christie quote, “Life is badly arranged.”
Oh, I wrote not too long ago about FB engendering envy. http://kateekat.blogspot.com/2014/07/envy.html