Crash and Burn

I have decided, definitively, is that there is nothing in life that makes being a grown up feel more stupid than the winter holidays.  No. Thing.

It starts with Halloween and keeps rolling right through November, with Thanksgiving, reaches the apex with Christmas and then slobbers all over you for New Years.  Then January comes, everyone has a holiday hangover and you’re a wreck because you've just spent the last two months frantically trying to make the holidays special and magical for your family to the point that you realize you’re not actually sure you even like the family you've just spent two months killing yourself for.

After a highly unscientific, casual survey, I've determined this is largely a female (bonus complications for working mother) problem.  Sorry guys, but most of you seem to have been trained that making holidays special, or even making them happen at all, is not your job – I do know a few exceptions to this, but there’s a reason for the stereotype on this one.

The Apocalypse Cometh

I use a sleep tracker on my phone primarily because it is one of the few alarms that can actually wake me up, but it has become a way to obsessively document my pathological lack of sleep. I now have months of data verifying that not sleeping will one day, possibly sooner than later, kill me.  I went into December with an average nightly sleep around 5:30 hours.  I had a goal to increase that by an hour. I ended December with average sleep of 5 hours.

I’m really tired – but I know I’m not alone, there is a whole army of exhausted women being manipulated by retailers, advertisers, media and extended family to do a ridiculous amount of work to make the holidays really special for everyone – kids, partners, family, co-workers – everyone except herself.

The zombie apocalypse has arrived – red eyed, bleary, mostly dead, they shamble through the mall looking for that last crucial gift or perfect decoration. At the least provocation, they may attack and eat your brain.

When I was finally human again, sometime in mid-January, I contemplated the absolute shambles of my life and pondered what-the-ever-living-fuck?

Seriously, I Quit

In addition to massive sleep deprivation, stress, and being physically run down, the holidays also resulted in my oldest kid taking advantage of my distraction to stop doing any kind of school work and promptly start flunking school. So, I quit – I am not doing the American Wonder Woman version of the holidays any more. Not ever again.

For one thing, I realized that the reason all of these external manipulations work is because my ego is tied up in it.  I don’t want to be THAT woman: the woman who doesn't bring goodies to the pot luck, the one who doesn't have beautifully wrapped gifts, the one who doesn't move the creepy Elf every night.

So, I told my ego to go sit the hell down. I'm retiring holiday wonder woman – she's finished, dead, gone.  I will now be a proud failure who jumps off the crazed hamster wheel of holiday perfection. I quit.

 

Instead, I’m going to focus on what makes the holidays so great for the kids – time spent, hugs given, moments relished, people loved and joy savored. It's corny, I know, but true.

I'm serious. Really.

And I realize that this is all from the comfortable distance of April…

The Sober Light of Day

A lot has happened in the past four months, and I've been forced by circumstances and events to reconsider a lot of things. Foremost, the flunking kid. Who is still flunking.

Just typing it makes my chest hurt and my eyes burn. I want to fix it, I want to make it all better and I want her to succeed. And I can’t. For so many reasons, I can’t.

Trying to figure out what’s happening, where I went completely wrong and what the hell to do about it caused a bit of a crisis for the whole Puff family, and me personally. I love education. I love discovery and reading and knowing about things. I revel in knowledge. To have a child failing at any part of school was like a punch to the face. It knocked me down.

From my new perspective, lying on the ground stunned, I realized a few things; primarily that I sometimes suck at parenting. I also realized that being good at school is a combination of having the right personality, the right social background, the right kind of motivation, and the right support system. I realized we were all failing at some, and probably most, of those things.

Finally, I realized that I don't want my child to fail school for her sake – because it is sad and embarrassing - but I also didn't want my child to fail school for my sake because then I would be THAT mother. The one who didn’t try hard enough, the one who didn’t care enough, the one who didn’t “support her child’s education,” to one who failed her child…and here's where the sucking as a parent part really shows up.

I have been trying SO hard to not be THAT mother – monitoring her performance, constantly checking up on every little part of what she was doing, riding her to keep up, shouting at her to work harder, excoriating her when she demonstrated that she didn't care - that it has been terrible for all of us. And most of it wasn't for her sake at all; it was for me and social pressure, and meeting everyone else's expectations. In trying to meet the school and cultural definitions of a “good enough” mother, I had instead failed Quokka, my child, my little girl.

She never worried about school at all, because I was doing all the worrying.  The only thing she worried about was whether or not I would still love her after I got done with a tirade over homework. In my furor to make sure she was getting by at the academic stuff, I completely failed to notice she wasn't thriving or learning anything that really mattered.

Without me there to ride her every second, she happily dusted off her hands and quit trying at all. I discovered that it is utterly impossible to make someone care about something they have no interest in doing no matter how much you shout or lecture.

I suppose I’m glad that the frenzy and distraction of the holidays finally shed light on the enormous hole in our raising of this complex little person.  Our crisis of parenthood over the past four months has driven us to examine what failed and try to reboot the system.  We’re rolling out Puff 2.0 with new tools, new methods, and a whole lot of hope.

Onward From Here

Some things have gotten better – I've been doing a lot less shouting which is making everyone happier – and some stuff is still a work in progress; which sort of describes parenthood, so that's okay.

The grades haven’t improved yet – and they might not this year. But I've accepted the fact that I can’t make it better for her and it's okay for her to figure out life by failing while she's young and the stakes are a lot lower. I now know, down to the bone, that my job is to make sure she grows up well, into a functional and competent adult, not a good student for Common Core elementary school – and those are two VERY different things. 

It still makes my heart hurt, but I have tried to gently prepare my irrepressible Quokka for the eventuality that she may be taking a do-over on this grade, because that’s the natural consequence when you don’t care or really try.

I have realized that what Quokka needs most of all right now is a mom who provides love and compassion and empathy for her struggle to find her way – not a mom who steamrolls the path and then drives her along it shouting directions every few feet.  She needs a mom who will let her fail so that she has the opportunity to learn, which, in many ways, is harder than being the shouty mom driving her so that we both look successful on paper.

I’m trying to be that mom, and oh, it’s so hard. I am still worried about her future and what will happen to her, but I know unequivocally that it is ultimately up to her, and her best chance for success relies on her knowing it too.

I’m learning to let go and stop trying to make everything so perfect for my kids – they need a chance to make things good enough for themselves. I’m learning to listen with empathy, instead of always being the fixer who wants everyone to get it right. I’m learning to trust more that everyone will figure it out (which has already resulted in disaster a few times – but it’s ended up in triumph a few times too.)

I’ll let you know how it goes.