I have a few confessions to share with you all. They won't make me look like a great mom, but I feel like venting/telling it like it is.
As you know, we have four children. Four children is wonderful, rewarding, tiring, and busy. When three of your four kids are in activities, you can't be at everything. When you have a toddler who has become wild, you can't be at everything. Well you can, but you will just be chasing him whereever he wants to go. You are at his beck and call.
Anyway, Thad and I tend to split up the crew when we do things. Last weekend (I promise I will post on this when I get more pictures from my friends) Thad and Ryan were in the cities, so I had the three kids to myself. Two of the three kids were in the ice show. Here is my confession....call me a bad parent, but I had no urge at all to watch my child in all three performances of the ice show. Dress rehearsal was fine. One night was fine, but by Saturday I was dreading it. I had Brady, so we had to leave early anyway, but frankly, I think I was relieved.
I do not enjoy watching multiple performances of my children--yet.
I have no urge to ever just go and watch my child practice their sport for fun. I think I went to hockey practice once or twice when Ryan was a Rookie, but since then, no thanks.
I find myself turning into my father. I can barely sit still through one anything that my kids are in. I talk more than I watch. I use any excuse to get up and move around. Dear lord I am becoming Wayne.
I went to two or three of Ryan's in house games this year. Give me a travel game any day. In house..sorry bud, but it's boring.
When I do have to stay at a practice: skating or dance, I choose to visit with people I don't normally see. Rarely do I pay attention to my kids.
I care, but I just.....get distracted by other things. I love my children passionately, but I am finding that especially this year, I am not the best parent when it comes to attending my kids' functions.
On that note, I am equallly passionate about not dragging my kids to every Ryan event. They get enough hockey, baseball, and football games already. If I get restless, why would I do the same to them. I used to be all about family supporting family, but I also have to accept the fact that it always ends up being the little kids going to watch the big kids' stuff. By the time Brady is in baseball or hockey, I am pretty sure the big kids will be 'too busy' to take more than one or two evenings out for him.
Okay enough of my rant about being a bad parent..
Oh well, the first step is admitting the problem right?
5 comments:
Your honesty is always refreshing, even when it probably isn't the easiest thing to admit. I don't have 4 kids so I can't know fully what its like, but I can completely see that dragging the younger ones along would in itself get really distracting and exhausting!
Don't EVEN think you are in any way a bad Mom. For one, you have all 3 of your older kids in multiple activities, the fact that you make it to most events is amazing. I am sure your kids don't even know if you are paying attention to them or not. The fact that you are even there is what matters most. Give yourself permission to chat and wander all you want, if thats what it takes to take care of yourself while taking care of them. 3 performances? Seriously? I am sure you are thinking of all the other things that need to be done like laundry, grocery shopping and on and on.....You are being way to hard on yourself. You get a gold star in my book. I would have had a meltdown by now!!
-Stephanie
Too much activity for me. I wouldn't watch either.
I don't like everything my kids do either, Bonnie.
Mine don't have any activities like that, but my older boys hunt and stuff.
And when they start telling me about all the minute details of dead things and about which rifle/shell/whatever they use, I basically glaze over.
I think Stephanie is right on. You've got way too much to do to sit and watch multiple performances/games/whatever. One? Fine. Getting kids to and from their practices? Check. Supporting and encouraging both the accomplishments and efforts? ABSOLUTELY. But it doesn't make you a bad parent if you don't want to sit there. Seriously, do you think dad is/was a bad parent for not wanting to sit through all our stuff (minor as it was) when we were kids? Nope. That's just dad, and God bless him, I know he's out in the lobby. ;) Remember, mom always said that even when she was in labor, dad was out at the nurse's station having coffee, a cigarette, and chatting with others.
Post a Comment