Before I had children, I thought I had lots of patience. I could deal with the most obnoxious client without losing my cool, I could discuss with our landlord for forty five minutes as to why portable washing machine of the 21st century was more than a bucket with a motor, and could babysit 6 kids several nights in a row without raising my voice even once. After I had DD, my belief in my never-ending patience only got stronger. After all, it is hard to lose it when the kid is less than one.
And then, with that mistaken assumption, I entered the world of a parent with more than one child. Within the first week of DS's birth, I realized that I am not so thick-skinned after all. After DD tried to touch baby's eyes and feed him her cereal repeatedly, I found myself raising my voice more and more often. And even then I could remember thinking that it was just a phase and will pass. After all, I was Miss Patience.
And then, DS reached the age when he started understanding things, and the myth of my patience along with the remnants of that patience, were completely shuttered. Hard and cold truth was shown to me: I have no patience. At all. I thought that I did because no one had ever tested it so thoroughly. Lately, and I must have blogged about it before, but once again I didn't know the lows I could reach then, I find myself screaming all the time when dealing with my children. Not just raising my voice, but shrieking with that disgusting high pitch that makes flowers wilt, husbands wince, myself nauseous and kids... it make my kids laugh. Which makes me yell louder, and them laughing harder, and thus the vicious circle is born.
Why am I yelling? After all, I have discovered that it is completely ineffective, especially at this point when it turned into a background noise for the kids. Do I have no self-control or at the very least self-respect? Why do I find myself in the middle of another mess, probably quite normal for the children of their age, nauseatingly screaming before I even give myself a chance to think? Because if I gave myself a chance to think, I definitely would've come up with something more effective. After all, I did take parenting classes, read parenting books and exchanged parenting techniques with more educated/experience parents. I have no answers.
And now, when they are falling asleep and I am typing away this entry, I feel miserable. I feel like a total failure as a mother and a human being. I know it will pass, but for now it is there. It might seem like cheating or taking and easy way out, but if there were a pill out there that would force me to keep my mouth shut for the first 10-15 seconds after I discover another mischief, I would take it. Simply for the benefit of my kids. But I am not aware of such a pill, so I have to find another answer...
Ah. Parenting...And the age of little sweet angelic babies turning into lean mean i'll-challenge-any-energizer-bunny trouble making machines...
ReplyDeleteBtw, do you have any suggestions for some good parenting books?
Hmmm. Like I said, I heard R'Kushnir, and he's online, I think you can even get it for free. I was looking into some books on Amazon, but hubs nipped it in the bud due to hashkofah that might not be in line with ours (i.e. frum). Some were recommended to me by ppl I trust: Chaim Ginot's books, there's another one "How to talk so your kids will listen and how to listen so your kids will talk. There were several others that were approved, but I don't remember names. There's also a phone class that I am planning to take, I think her name is Mrs. Yaris, it came highly recommended. It is given from 9 to 10 pm. and you can listen to the recording if you can't make it. But that one costs $$$ per class, though many ppl say it is soooo worth it, so I am going to try, bli neder.
ReplyDeleteTHanks! I listened to many tapes. And I heard about the phone classes and even thought of registering a couple of times. But so far it's all theory...
ReplyDelete