The Difficult Child
All my life I have been labeled a Difficult Child by my mother. For the longest time I was sad that I was my mother's first child. I felt like she should have had my brother first, the Easy Child, because I was simply too much.
I'm over that crap.
During my pregnancy I started to realize that I was not a Difficult Child. My mother simply wasn't equipped with enough emotional intelligence to parent optimally and I was (and still am) a bit high needs. She didn't know what I needed. I have let go of my feelings of fault because I was just a baby.
She now doing the same thing to Finn. And it's PISSING me off.
Finn has been putting M. and myself through the wringer. Our house was a disaster (I finally broke down and hired a housekeeper). We are exhausted. He has been napping less but they aren't longer, leaving us a total of 1.5 hours per day to get ANYTHING done. He is an exhausting child.
This does not suit my mother's agenda, which is to manipulate her way into seeing him approximately once per week. I basically told her that we didn't want her to come to visit because things are way too chaotic with Finn at the moment. This did not sit well.
So Finn has become a Difficult Child, according to my mother, one that we have to fix. She thinks it's because of his "traumatic birth". Please realize that Finn's birth being "traumatic" is something my mother has decided and I don't happen to agree. If there was one person at that birth who was strong and steadfast the entire time, it was our boy. He was sitting in my birth canal and they were finding his heart rate right over my pubis, and he never ONCE faltered.
I will never tell Finn that he was a Difficult Child. This implies that some fault lies with him and he is not capable of having fault at this time. He is a precocious, whip-smart, beautiful little boy who regularly pushes us to the very edge of our sanity. He is also OUR child and we were all made for each other, meaning BRING IT ON little boy, because we are your parents and we love you and we will meet you at every step. This is our job.
posted by Sacha @ 8:52 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Finn doesn't sound 'difficult' as far as temperament is concerned. He sounds like a baby! It's not terribly nice or productive of your mom to label children because they're not meeting her schedule.
Oh, I hear you. I am my mother's Difficult Child (though in adulthood, I think my sister stresses her out much more). My sister's son was a very hard baby for the first three months, but he is now a happy smiley boy just like my sister was. I am worried that she will transfer her crap about me onto Flipper, regardless of what kind of baby he is. And if she does, I will have to kill her. ;-)
Sometimes moms can be such a pain- I guess they mean well:) I hope things get better and more under control for you gals! Sounds like you have a great plan of action:)
I so want to give you a hug! It has taken me years to realize that I was a child and didn't deserve the abuse that we received, along with the label of difficult child.
Stand firm and do not allow your beautiful boy to become the recipient of such negativeism.
There are no "difficult" children, just children that need to be parented differently. That doesn't make them good or bad, just children.
(I am posting as anonymous as my mother regularly googles my name to see what I'm saying online.)
Post a Comment
<< Home