Ok, *one* of the things about kids is...

When your kid need to be somewhere, in this case at church at 8:25 to set up for the 9:00 am service (for which he plays drums) it does not matter how late you got to bed or how little sleep you have had. You still have to pull yourself together and wake yourself up enough to drive him to church.

This is a letter I wrote to a friend who asked about being a mother. brian1789 suggested I post it here...


E,

I guess it depends on whether you think you are doing a good job being a mother. I am not by nature a nurturing human being, and I have little patience. Most days I feel I am doing a poor job as a mother. (Giving yet another generation of therapists a group of long term clients.) Especially lately I feel like have been put on stage with a group of plates and sticks and told to make them all spin, and I can't seem to keep them going.

It's hard because being a mother means doing the same thing over and over and over. You never have any accomplishments that seem to last, and sometimes it seems that the only feedback you get is from people willing to tell you what you are doing wrong (including your own kids). It means picking up the socks that you picked up yesterday (and whose owner was repeatedly told to take care of them). It means having people at parties more interested in what your husband does than who you are. (This is exaggerated in my case because my husband does such fascinating things : > ) In my case, it mean being out-numbered by young males who are doing their best to act like they are being raised by (as one button I saw had it) "psychotic wolverines". Somewhere there are children who don't know everything and who are willing to learn niceties such as manners and cleaning their room and helping with housework, but not in my house. Having an eldest child who is a borderline depressive (gets it from me), a second who has high functioning autism, and a third who we've not had fully assessed but who has a tendency to ignore constraints of safety and common sense makes the job harder.

And yet, I do love my kids very much. And they *do* need someone at home when they get back from school - especially David. And I see glimmers of the adults they may grow up to be (both good and bad) and I worry that I'm damaging them beyond repair.

Pat

PS. And I didn't even get into my rant about societal views of childrearing (along the lines that raising children is, when push comes to shove, treated by mainstream American society as sort of an elaborate hobby, like raising champion springer spaniels, which is fine as long as it doesn't cause anyone else any inconvenience).