Note: If you're looking for this week's Hodgepodge questions you'll find them here.
Last Friday I had an errand to run some distance from home. As I was driving I found myself caught up in the dialogue of a call in radio show which centered around a recent online essay written by a mom of two small children (a 3 yo daughter and a 20 month old son). You can read her original post here but essentially she says she loves her son more than her daughter. (Did anyone else think YIKES?!!) She doesn't say she doesn't love her daughter, just that she loves her son more. She went on to write about imaginary worse case scenarios and how she could envision living without her daughter but not without her son...that she hopes this third child she's expecting is a girl so she can "start over with a little girl..."
Do you think people have opinions about this?
Whoa!
You betcha!
I've thought about what she said and did and I've decided I'd like to offer her some free (unsolicited and perhaps unwelcome) advice. In responding to some of the comments she received the author took issue with people offering advice but hello, it's the internet. When you put something out there that might be considered controversial you've got to assume you're going to get some advice. Is that a bad thing? Did she post the confession in hopes of somehow making the relationship with her daughter better or did she publish the confession to make herself feel better?
Dear Internet Mom...
Your words made me sad. For you and especially for your daughter, but for you too. Those must be some hard feelings to feel. Your children are little, still so very, very young...the age where thirty minutes spent with a strong-willed, cranky child can feel like thirty years. At age three a child's personality is not set in stone. Its still forming and developing and you as the mom play a huge role in that. How we respond and react to our children absolutely influences their present and future behavior. If there are qualities in your daughter that are difficult to take then do the hard work of figuring out a way to direct those traits and tendencies in a more positive direction.
And it is hard work.
Really hard.
The kind that means letting go of self for the greater good of your innocent three year old...the kind that pays off in the long run.
When you say you love your son a little bit more than your daughter do you really mean love? Or do you mean 'like' because I do think there's a difference. If what you meant to say was, 'like' then I would say of course there are moments in our kids lives where one may be easier to 'like' than the other. Children go thru stages and phases depending on age and maturity and disposition. Child A plucks our last nerve and pushes our buttons while Child B warms our heart and then suddenly Child A matures a little bit and Child B enters a new stage and your feelings do too. In fact when your 20 month old son is three you may discover he isn't as 'likable' as he is right now.
Hearing a mother say, "I'm having a hard time liking you right now" and knowing your mother has said "I love your brother more than you" are two very different things. One is something we can laugh about later while the other is something that can worm its way into a child's heart never to be forgotten.
The author has written a follow up piece (she kinda had to) in which she defends her 'honesty' and says this needs to be out there in a public forum because she isn't the only one who feels this way. That if we're going to be honest in a 'my house is messy' fashion we need to go all the way and be honest about everything.
My response to this is no-we don't.
I think the idea that everything we think and feel needs to be said out loud is a flaw in our current culture. At the very least it doesn't all need to be said in a public written forum that a once difficult three year old little girl may read down the road someday. She won't be three forever.
Is an internet audience filled with anonymous (and judgmental) readers really the place to go to deal with these feelings? I've never felt what you're feeling but I have no doubt you feel it. And you probably speak for more than a few other parents out there too, but does that mean we need to blog about it? Dear Internet Mom-Before taking it to the internet did you try sharing these feelings with a close friend, sister, minister, spouse or, if none of those options were available, then a neutral third party such as a therapist or even a parent help line as opposed to Blogger and the world wide web?
Why does every thought we have need to be laid bare online just because other people have the same thought?
How does putting this out there help you and your daughter improve your relationship? You've received harsh criticism from one side and amens from the other. In the end though, you are left with your feelings, maybe more guilt than you had prior to writing or perhaps a sense of justification in feeling what you feel because you're not alone, but still, no real solution.
As I listened to callers on one side of the issue or the other what I found myself thinking about was your formerly anonymous, now named by name, 'difficult' three year old little girl. In responding to commenters who say they hope your daughter never reads the post you (the author) say you hope she does. That it will somehow help your daughter understand you were not a perfect parent.
You know what?
Kids don't really want to know the depth of our imperfections.
And as you'll learn soon enough, most kids don't need to think their parents are perfect...only that their parent's love for them is.
She's three. Your son is less than two. You have no way of knowing what life will bring their way and you may one day wonder how you ever entertained thoughts such as these. I pray your daughter never knows. Relationships grow and change and nothing requires our best effort quite like parenting.
At this stage of the parenting game the future likely seems light years away....a distant horizon that will take eons to reach. The day when you no longer have little ones underfoot is so far out along that horizon its impossible to grasp. I can't explain the tricks of time but trust me when I tell you these three year old days will be just a fuzzy blur in the not so distant future.
People say it all the time but cliches are cliches for a reason...time flies.
You can change the way you feel.
You can establish new habits and ways of connecting with a three year old.
You can have a relationship you truly cherish with this girl who will be an adult in the blink of an eye.
At the moment, you are the adult.
There is a lot of life to be lived between now and her grown up days.
Cherish it.
She may one day decide to blog about her mother.
You may think you won't care.
I think you might.
