So one more mother’s day thing. Though it’s more of a parenting in general thing.

I had to work really hard to overcome what I had learned as a child that a mother was. Mothers were screaming beasts who you could never do enough for. Mothers loved you sometimes and other times told you that they hated you and wished you’d never been born. I never saw myself as a mother when I was a kid because I never wanted to be that monster. And then I got pregnant and this kind of overwhelming sense of love and protection kicked me in the ass.

But just that overwhelming love isn’t enough to keep you from being a monster if all you’ve ever known is monsters. You have to work at it, really hard. You have to say to yourself, over and over that this is a person you love more than anything in the world and you wouldn’t want anyone, including yourself, to treat them badly. It wasn’t automatic. I’ve certainly forgotten myself a few times. But I admit my mistakes. I examine them and apologize for them and never repeat them once I’ve figured it out. It’s a grueling process. It is hard to look at yourself honestly and acknowledge your flaws. But it’s worth it.

So then I read this from Matt Damon’s mom, who knows a thing or 2 about children.

‘I tried to “let go of the rope” and get on the same side of problems with them and solve things from that shared place. This helped both Matt and Kyle develop a strong inner core of confidence and self love. They didn’t have to get distracted by power struggles with me. Granted, I was the parental authority in the home—I was a single parent—but I never had to impose my will on them.’

I like this. Letting go of the need to dominate a child is a big deal. You get all kinds of shit for it, treating a child like a full fledged human being with a will and a purpose of their own is considered child abuse by the “spare the rod and spoil the child” folks. Hell I get all kinds of grief for letting Kid be the introvert that he is and not forcing him into social situations that he hates.(I’ve not yet met an introvert who thinks that being forced to be social as a kid was good for them).

Right now Kid and I have been in the midst of a cleaning fest. Kid unloaded dishwasher while I picked up trash from unpacking boxes in the living room. Kid then picked up the little shit off the floor that I have a hard time reaching while I loaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen. This is how we work. I hate to nag. Really hate it. And he hates to be nagged. So we divide up the work and conquer. I do occasionally see him pulling the teenage trick of “oh I’ve forgotten how to do this chore I’ve done a thousand times” but rather than turning that into a giant power battle, I remind he that he knows how to do it and then drop it. His not wanting to do chores isn’t because he doesn’t love me, but because nobody likes doing chores.

This has become a long rambly post. Ooops. The point is that the Kid is a human being and that is more important than the fact that he is also my kid. I don’t own him. I give him