Dirty Little Secret

I have just received Ironflower’s 8 PAGE packet for her dance recital. Now, I might welcome the packet if it told me exactly what make-up to put on her or what to do with her beautifully unruly hair. I might welcome the packet if it laid out her 2 routines so that we could practice at home. I might welcome her packet if she wasn’t in preschool. But instead I look at the packet and think, are you FREAKING SERIOUS?

I still don’t know how to do her hair or her make-up. . .or even what her costume looks like (which doesn’t really bother me because the recital is not until late May, but why not just include this info in the packet?). But I do know that we can’t make our own DVD of the recital AND that it will cost us $40 to buy one. I also now know that I can purchase extremely over-priced bouquets and photos. Oh, and there’s a complicated lottery system for ticket purchases. I have also read about the procedures for picking up my child after the performance and extensive details about the dress rehearsal.

I am also to provide non-staining snacks and toys for her use backstage.

Snacks????? Toys??????

You know what I did backstage during the myriad recitals and performances I was in?

I talked to my friends and I watched the other dancers. When I got older, I put on more make-up. And I didn’t get to eat anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I also walked 2 miles up hill to school (actually, I would have done that, if my mom hadn’t driven me to school most of the time) and survived just fine.

I am usually the person who stands up for the booster seats until they can drive (or whatever the rule is now),  helmets and bouncy playground surfaces. I’m reluctant to leave my children with a baby-sitter or for them to have playdates without me. I overanalyze everything (which you have probably noticed if you’ve ever read this blog before). In short, I am a modern parent.

But I think we’ve gone off the deep end where dance recitals are concerned. First come, first served seating is no longer good enough for today’s families.  DVDs have to be professionally produced. Bouquets have be  big and expensive. Photos must be taken by an overcharging professional. Children must be entertained backstage. Packets must be sent home 3 months beforehand. All the spontaneity of live performance must be crushed.

I am so NOT cut out for helicopter parenting.

I do not have the heart of a champion. When I watch the Olympics and the announcers talk about various athletes being disappointed about getting the bronze or coming in 10th or whatever, I want to call those athletes and say, “Oh my gosh, you’re the 12th best skier in the world today – congratulations! You’re better than billions and billions of people!”

I’m a “good enough” sort of person. Partially because I’d rather be curled up on the couch with a book than, you know, actually working and partially because I think perfectionism can drive you insane. I tried to be perfect once – to excel at grad school and to keep a perfect house and to be a perfect wife and to look perfect – and it triggered my first flare of ulcerative colitis. And my subsequent divorce.

My “good enough” lifestyle has some benefits in parenting. My kids are really good at entertaining themselves, for example, because I’m don’t feel the need to be supermom and entertain them 24/7. They’re also good at doing things for themselves because I don’t feel like I have to do everything for them.

The problem is that I feel terribly guilty about this.

When I was teaching – another job you can pretty much do all the time and never reach perfection with – I didn’t feel bad when I happy-stamped instead of corrected homework or helped the kids earn extra recess so I could have a few more minutes to finish lesson plans.

But with motherhood, it’s different.

My not-quite 4 year old does not know how to write his name. I’ve tried to teach him, but he LOATHES it with a deep passion that I thought he only reserved for shots. The “good enough” person in me says that it’s no big deal and that he’ll learn eventually and to just let it go. The mother in me feels like a failure.

And when they’re all perfectly happy and I’m doing something like writing or cleaning or updating my Facebook status, I feel kind of bad about that too. Like I should be doing something creative with them, or at least talking to them. But in “good enough” world there’s no earthly reason to disturb happy children.

Is there a drug out there to ease the guilt? Or to make me perfect without going crazy?

The only New Year’s resolution I’ve really kept – for years and years – is the one I’ve never told anyone about. When I thought of it, I was a semi-shallow 17 year old. Now, (slightly) more than 20 years later, I still keep my nails neatly painted (clear counts, okay? My resolution, my rules.)

Now that I’ve mentioned it, I will probably have a horrible nail accident that prevents me from painting them for the next six months.

Anyway, I don’t talk about my resolutions anymore, for the most part. Partly because I tend to keep them so easy and manageable (“I will not let gray show in my hair for at least another 5 years,” “I will reorganize the hall closet”, “I will stop drinking wine because it gives me a headache”) that they don’t seem a proper response when someone tells me that her resolution is to run a marathon that year. And partly because I’m superstitious that if I tell everyone then my resolution will fail.

Not that I haven’t had plenty resolutions fail anyway. Such as last year’s “lose weight” and “stop yelling”. So this year one of my resolutions is, “Stop being superstitious about New Year’s resolutions”.

Another resolution I’m going to share with the 4 of you that still read this blog:

Chill the Fuck Out.

Yep, my resolution is so rebellious that it contains the F word.

Every year, I resolve to be a better mother, a better wife, a better daughter, a better friend. I plan to lose weight (except for 2008, when I planned to at least not gain weight and got pregnant a month later), eat healthier, exercise more, clean the house more, be more organized, take my writing more seriously, manage our limited financial resources better, create interesting projects for my children each day, learn to cook, make more money, learn Spanish, develop a supplemental home curriculum to boost my children’s learning, to volunteer at the preschool more and to never yell at my children.

Sure, I”ve made improvements in some of those areas. But mostly, I’ve just felt like a failure. And failures are not happy people, just in case you didn’t know. I know that there are people out there who do all of the above and more. Goddess bless them, it’s time to face the fact that I will not be joining their ranks.

Oh, I’m going to keep trying to be better. Much as I might be tempted to give up and turn into Peggy Bundy, I’d be bored in two days weeks. But when I don’t succeed, I’m going to chill the fuck out. And when I’m driving myself crazy to match up with the image I have of good mothers/writers/housewives, I’m going to chill the fuck out.

I’ve started small this week, because I’ve also finally accepted the fact that I’m better with small steps and not grand gestures. So this week, I’ve chilled out about the morning. For some reason, no matter how early we get up, I’ve always felt the need to hurry my kids in the morning. I’ve been wanting them to dress faster, move faster and eat faster for months (consequently I think that they’ve started to do things more and more slowly, but that’s another post) so that we could get to school on time.

So what if we were grumpy and harassed when I dropped them off? At least I’d fulfilled the good mother checklist of getting them there on time.

On the chill the fuck out approach, I’ve stoppped hurrying them. I’ve even stopped setting my alarm, because Lovebug will always wake early and thus so will I. And hearing him play is much nicer than the buzz of my alarm clock. I tell them what to do (and I’ve hedged my bets by laying out their clothes the night before) and then I just let them do it. I don’t rush them. We have conversations and hugs. I don’t offer dire warnings of starving until snack time while they talk instead of eating at breakfast.

Here’s the strange part: We actually made it to school on time every day this week.

I think I might really like this resolution.

I felt guilty when I first read it. “Oh my God, I do that all the time! I did it to all 3 kids! I’m so irresponsible!” And then, well, then I took a deep breath. I turned off the “Supermom” voice, the one that screams (internally) whenever the baby eats a cracker from the floor, the one that panics (mostly internally) whenever she sees one of her child’s peers exhibit a skill her child doesn’t have, the one who is thinking about learning to knit just because she thinks moms should know how, not that she has actually interest.

I reread the paragraph. “What was she thinking?” I wondered this time around.

The “she” is some mom who wrote to Parents magazine because her daughter’s car seat fell off the shopping cart. Now that sucks, and I’m very glad the baby was okay. Apparently, the shopping cart went over a bump and the car seat fell off the top part. The part where I’ve been putting my car seats for the last 5 years.

I have never had a car seat fall.

Possibly some of that is luck. And possibly some of it is that when the terrain is bumpy, I freaking hold on to the car seat.

Look, I’m not judging. I’m sure this woman is much more patient than I am and spends hours reading to her baby every day. I bet there are no crackers on her floor. So I’m NOT saying I’m better than she is. I’m really not. I’m just saying. . .didn’t she ever notice what the car seat did when it was bumpy? How it bounces it bit? How did she not notice?

And why did Parents magazine have to publish this? Now poor new moms are going to be strapping their babies into Bjorns and not giving their poor backs a damn rest while at the grocery store. Why not just say, “Hold the car seat in the parking lot”?

Is it really too much to ask people who procreate to have some sense?

When I said that I read a lot, or mention that I blog, or say something about writing some web content, people seem impressed. Not, you know, because they’ve read my brilliant writing but because they note that I have three small kids. And no nanny, cleaning lady or daycare. (I realize that this is perfectly normal in most parts of the world. But not so much around here.) They wonder where I find the time.

I’ve recently made room in my world for exercise again. And I do read a lot. And blog (though not as much lately). And write. And sometimes I play with my children. And I feed them. And I make sure they don’t kill each other. I realized, as I incorporated exercise into my life again, that it’s possible to fit in the things I really want to do.

What I don’t really do is clean. I mean, there are clean dishes (a trick since our current dishwasher seems to have died recently), clean clothes and clean sheets. There’s usually not any mold growing in the toilet. I try to sweep after every meal, if only to prevent ChunkyMonkey eating food from the floor. But I’m not a cleaner. I have to be inspired to mop, or to dust or to clean under the couches.

I LIKE it when things are clean, but given a choice between reading and vacuuming, the book is going to win.

But I never know how to answer people when they seem to be impressed with what I can do in a day. Do I admit that my house is messy and cluttered? That my kids ask me what I’m doing every time I mop? That my kids watch too much TV? Or do I just give them a smug smile?

After some trauma in my youth and an ugly first marriage, I worked really hard on my mental health. I became a happy person. The only voice in my head was mine.

And then I had kids.

Now being in my head is like being at a committee meeting ALL THE TIME. There’s an officious president who’s all about following the rules from the parenting books (You can’t let the baby cry! Have you read to them for twenty minutes? ), the crackpot in the back (Why don’t you just chill and let everyone eat ice cream for dinner?), the one who’s read too many self-help books (You’re not giving enough hugs! Hug that kid who just used crayon all over her carpet!), the one who’s not paying attention (I wonder if Daisy of Love will be as good as Rock of Love?), the mommy blogger (Will this be funny enough for a post, or just humiliating?), the nutritionist (Where is all the organic food you were supposed to buy? They have to eat carrots!) and my mother (Don’t take a break! You haven’t done everything yet!).

It’s a wonder no one’s caught me talking to myself yet.

Do you have voices in your heads? Or do I really need that much fantasized about week in the loony bin?

Far be it for me to criticize other parents. Really, I don’t like to judge.

But.

I just don’t GET parents who hire a baby planner, aka “baby concierge”.

While I’m a fan of parents making informed decisions and reading expert opinions, I think parenting outsourcing has gotten out of control. Not only can you hire someone to toilet train or sleep train your child, you can now have someone teach you how to sign up for your baby registry and choose a childcare provider. Seriously.

Is it really that hard to read a few magazines or websites and pick the best products? Is it too much to ask friends and acquaintances with kids? Is it too selfish to just pick what appeals to you?

What’s the point of having a kid if the baby planner chooses the registry and the nanny, the nanny spends 80 hours a week with the kid, the toilet trainer potty trains your kid, the sleep trainer teaches your kid to sleep on its own, the speech therapist teaches your kid to communicate (and I don’t mean the kids with speech problems, either) the tutor teaches your kid to read and the personal shopper picks out of all your kid’s clothes?

Oh, how I wish I was kidding.

Isn’t it sad that so many parents are so terrified of doing something wrong that they don’t actually parent their kids at all?

There might also be some laziness involved. Because all that stuff is HARD. (Except the baby registry. That’s just fun.) But isn’t that the point? I mean, if you want something easy you get a cat.

And speaking of cats, happy birthday to my fantastic mom, cat owner, writer, editor, gardener, super cook, doting Grammy, dancer and family rock. I don’t know what we’d do without her.

It’s not that I claim to be a parenting expert or anything. I suppose I’ve got some basics figured out – don’t smack them upside the head even when they deserve it, keep them clean and fed, don’t let them watch R-rated movies, always have extra diapers. I also thought that encouraging them to learn the basic life skills was a good idea. And it appears that I’m in the minority on this.

Yesterday at Ironflower’s dance class, I observed another four year old come in, plop down on the dressing room floor and hold her feet up. Her mother then removed her shoes for her. I nearly fell off the bench. This mom has always seemed perfectly sane to me. I subtly checked out the other girls and moms and it was all the same. Seemingly loving and normal moms removing shoes and clothes for their able-bodied kids. After class it was the same thing – Ironflower is the only one expected to dress herself and ask if she needs help. All the other moms dress their four year olds.

And yet I’m really bothered that almost three year old Lovebug can’t/won’t put on his own shoes. He also needs help removing shirts because he has such a big head. (No, seriously, it’s that big. I’m going to be helping him in that department until he’s like 8 or so, I swear.) But even he’s been taking off his own shoes forever. And he takes off everything else and we’re working on dressing himself.

At first I was all proud of my kids and their skills. But then I realized that maybe these kids CAN do all of these things, they just don’t have to. And I started to wonder if I should be doing these things for my kids too. Am I forcing them to be too independent? Should they just expect me to take their shoes off for them?

Fortunately I then remembered that martyrdom does not become me, so this is all really moot. Independent kids make a much less stressed Jerseygirl. In fact, I’ve even got Ironflower helping Lovebug with his shoes now, so frustrated have I become trying to teach him (or will him, rather) to put on his slip-on shoes. And we’re all a little happier in the morning.

But still, is this forced independence going to make them feel unloved? Or are those other kids being taught that they’re incapable? What are your thoughts?

PS – Leslie over at My Mommy’s Place is having another one of her haiku contests. Check it out!

South Carolina is pretty boring on I-95 I can’t wait until we get to Savannah I love Savannah. Garmin Girl is telling us to go a different way than the hotel website said but of course we have to listen to her though it is a relief to get off of 95 wow there’s no traffic here.

Oh my look at that bridge I’m going to have to admit that Garmin Girl sent us a good way this view is AWESOME now we are going to find the hotel wow this neighborhood looks dodgy are those project houses? They totally are but this can’t be right because the website said we’d be in the historic district and I’m pretty sure they don’t put section 8 houses in historic districts oh my that’s the hotel well at least the lobby’s nice and we’re blocks from the historic district

GOOD LORD the historic district seems far poor Hot Guy pushing this behemoth triple stroller oh my Goddess I am hungry at least these projects don’t seem as bad as the ones I used to teach by we are never going to make it down to River Street with this stroller where are the ramps? Maybe we can find a place up here on Bay Street oh look a pub. I want a beer.

Hmmmm . . .this is good and they have kids’ food and what the hell are those girls wearing? They look like sorority and fraternity kids but those dresses look like hooker dresses from the ’80’s and the shoes are trampy too oh please god don’t tell me all those nice looking young frat guys brought hookers to a formal I am NOT staring, Hot Guy, and anyway they wouldn’t notice if I was, I’m old. I like this mixed aged happy hour crowd but I don’t like dragging Ironflower through it on the way to the bathroom oh the bathroom lady moved here from NJ and loves it I want to move to Savannah too

This walk back sucks and I don’t like the way that homeless guy is looking at us and I don’t care if that makes me prejudiced against the homeless or the mentally ill or whatever God I am SWEATING. . . .I love it here.

I can’t believe ChunkyMonkey is sleeping through the night but Lovebug is waking me up. . Uggghhhhhh. ..need sleep. ..so tired. … .

We are finally going to get to the Gulf Coast of Florida today but wow, northern Florida is kinda ugly. I was thinking that I would enjoy driving on this smaller road connecting 95 to 75 but I was so wrong I feel like I’m in Deliverance country and the traffic is so SLOW and we’re never going to get there. . .

Gainesville is the ugliest college town I have ever seen.

How come no one in Florida understands the basic traffic laws? I can’t believe all these crazy people passing on the right at 100 mph and the people on the left chugging along at 60 this is nuts and totally freaking me out God bless Hot Guy for driving oh please stop crying and whining Lovebug I want out of the car too JUST SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

Oh my poor baby Chunky has been such a trouper he’s finally done too bad the drive isn’t I hope he stops crying soon he’s full and and his diaper is new he’s just sick of the seat poor baby STOP CRYING, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

I wonder if pulling my hair out of my head would make me feel better we have been on the road for over 20 hours all together and I just want to get there and THESE OLD PEOPLE ARE FUCKING INSANE DRIVERS it would be so tragic if we died now and my last thoughts were about how sick I am of I Spy and why didn’t I spend money on DVD players? Why?

I’ve hardly ever had a job that didn’t involve kids. Babysitter, nanny, teacher, tutor. . .MOM. I like kids. I do.

But, um, I don’t really like playing with them.

I love watching them play while I also watch TV or check my email. I love teaching them new things. I love reading to them. I love cuddle time. I’ll play active games, or sing songs willingly. I like going to the park and story time and other outings.

But playing princess dolls and trains? Not so much.

I feel like I just came out or admitted an addiction. “Hi, my name is Jerseygirl and I don’t like playing.”

“Hi Jerseygirl!”

It’s not so much that I DISlike playing with my kids. It’s that I get bored. I’m the kind of person who likes to read and watch TV at the same time. I like to check my email when I’m on the phone. I also like to read and/or watch TV and/or check Facebook while I play princess dolls. Because making the appropriate responses during Ironflower’s stories? Not so interesting. While she’s very creative artistically and when she’s telling a story, the princesses tend to do the same thing. Over and over. And over and over again.

Once Hot Guy asked me who had taught Lovebug to crash his trains and cars. Because we don’t let him see violent stuff and because this was before he’d started preschool, Hot Guy wondered how his little boy had learned to stage crashes.

I hated telling him that I had taught our innocent little boy to crash things because I got bored pushing them around and around. Strangely enough, Lovebug no longer wants me to play trains with him. It’s almost like he doesn’t trust me with all of his expensive Thomas toys.

Sometimes I imagine Ironflower on the therapist’s couch lamenting, “And every time my mom played with me, she had to watch Ugly Betty or Top Chef too. Now I think I’m boring and that’s why I have 87 piercings.” But then I think about how much therapy she’ll need if I starting banging my head against a wall while we’re playing, so I’m reasonably sure that I’m doing the lesser of the two evils.

What do you think?