Real Talk About Parenting

Maybe I should never have had kids.

I have thought this over the years, but recently especially because as of last month, both of my children have expressed to me that they doubt that I love them. I know, kids can be dramatic. I know. But I also know that the world is chaotic, and the one thing that a child should have as an absolute is that their parents love them.

I was a wreck when both of my kids were newborns. I chalk this up to being a control freak. Neither of them was the "sleep right through the night" happy-go-lucky infant that some people seem to have. D was hard, but then I had Mal and realized that D was actually easy. Both of my kids' dads got low-key (and maybe high-key) frustrated (or angry) with me about my emotional deficiencies when our kids were fresh.

Ken's breaking point was when he walked into the living room when D was a few weeks old and saw me just sobbing as the baby's body jolted with hiccups. His helpful advice: "You have to pull yourself together."

With James, it was that one day, when Malcolm was very tiny, James was at work (for reference: Mal was born on a Thursday afternoon, and James's bosses contacted him Friday and said, "No rush, but just so we can know what to expect: When do you plan to come back to work?" He went back on Monday.) and Mal just would not stop crying, as per usual. I was sleep-deprived and near the end of my rope. There was nothing to do, and nothing makes me feel crazier when there's nothing to do. I was scared of myself. Not scared that I'd just run away or even hurt the baby or anything. Just overwhelmed by the weight of the responsibility that it felt I was expected to bear on my own. 

I called James in tears and said, "He won't stop crying, and I don't know what to do. I need you to come home." By the time James got there, maybe 25 minutes later, Mal and I were on the porch and he'd calmed down. James sat with us a while, then went back to work.

Later, he admitted that this was the one time in our whole relationship that he'd been frustrated with me. He thought that the baby was hurt or that something was out-of-the-ordinary wrong, when it was just the normal stuff, but waves upon waves of it. Apparently, there was a meeting at work that had to be rescheduled because of my neediness. I was honestly shocked there weren't other times he'd been mad. I'd been a selfish jerk quite often and wouldn't have resented that. This baffled me. I needed... something.

Everyone needs something.

And something no-one tells you when you try to blend a family, especially if only one of you has kids, is that it feels like you're the single one who has to make sure that everyone's needs are met. It's your responsibility to make sure that no one feels inconvenienced or hurt by the decisions you made, because if they do, then it means that it's your fault and that you brought this on them.

So if you're a perfectionist like me, you try to manage. You try to manage resources and environment and activities. You try to anticipate needs and meet them in advance so no one feels left out or overlooked.

Then when you make a decision for your own life or even for the family unit as a whole, if one person doesn't agree with it, it feels even more fraught than if you'd started off all on the same page for the kids' whole lives. 

When I was married to Ken, I exercised my empathy until it was flawless. It was codependent and unhealthy, but I tried to operate in ways I knew wouldn't stir the pot. I assumed that when I got out of that relationship, things would get easier.

I was right, in terms of having an unconditionally loving partner. But what I didn't realize is that I took my empathy with me, and when D started having issues with the trajectory our lives were taking (unfortunate side effect of being a kid is that you get dragged wherever your parents' choices take you), I would start to pour all of that energy into maintaining normalcy as much as possible for my kid.

Once, when D was in therapy when I was expecting Mal, I met with D's therapist to discuss some things, and the therapist told me, "You're addressing this practically, but you're not addressing D's feelings about it." And recently, D has told me the same thing: I meet their physical needs, but not the emotional ones.

But, damn it, I don't know what else to do. I have two kids who have various sensory/sensitivity things that James and I both deal with, but I'm the day-to-day person who tries to manage things like sounds, fears, hygiene, food preferences, appointments, pet interactions... and maybe I'm just the kind of person who doesn't have a lot of emotional energy left over after all of that.

So maybe I shouldn't have had kids.

It doesn't seem to be something I can handle.

My kids deserve better than that, and I'm tired.

So... where do we go from here?