(no subject)
Terrible terrible night for terrible terrible reasons. That is, petty ones. I got depressed over an essay the thirteen-year-old wrote. Depressed because she got an 89.5 and her friend got a 95. Depressed because her friend always does better (in English!) and I feel deep in my bones that she shouldn't. (I am affronted by it every time! But if I told you the reasons why I feel she shouldn't, it would really make me pathetic.) Depressed because it's a stupid and silly thing to care about but, you know, there are times when I feel like a deep failure on the parenting front. This happens when I consider long term habits. Like when I discover that the younger child has gone three days without brushing her teeth. Or I find all of her clothes mashed into her drawers so tightly that the entire dresser is at risk for explosion. Or when we all look fat in a photograph. Or when one of them fails a reading comprehension question. I am not kidding about this -- it's matters of diet. What have we been doing with our time? Have we been lazy for years? I am lazy, and I fail at so many of the regular parenting gigs -- the bedtime routine, the morning routine, any routine routine. I buy McDonald's from time to time because it's handy. Except for the little dancer, we have failed on the exercise and fitness front too. In other words: all the normal stuff.
Which is not to say I've been a parenting failure overall. Obviously. We don't drink soda or juice and for god's sakes they both chew with their mouths closed which is more than I can say for almost all of their cohort. But it doesn't take much to feel like a failure. Is this a parenting thing, or is it just a personality problem? I have been avoiding, for several years now, a friend who makes me feel terrible just by being herself. I have another friend, a very old one, who has been avoiding me. Is it the same thing? She comes from a family that is pathologically obsessed with being superior. I don't think they can exist without feeling superior in all their relationships. I diagnosed this years ago as a kind of mental illness -- it's almost narcissistic. Once I spotted the pattern, their whole family dynamic made so much more sense. But I suppose if I'm honest, I relate to it in some pale way.
Which is not to say I've been a parenting failure overall. Obviously. We don't drink soda or juice and for god's sakes they both chew with their mouths closed which is more than I can say for almost all of their cohort. But it doesn't take much to feel like a failure. Is this a parenting thing, or is it just a personality problem? I have been avoiding, for several years now, a friend who makes me feel terrible just by being herself. I have another friend, a very old one, who has been avoiding me. Is it the same thing? She comes from a family that is pathologically obsessed with being superior. I don't think they can exist without feeling superior in all their relationships. I diagnosed this years ago as a kind of mental illness -- it's almost narcissistic. Once I spotted the pattern, their whole family dynamic made so much more sense. But I suppose if I'm honest, I relate to it in some pale way.