Parenting through the Coronavirus

Yesterday was a bad day. 

I felt defeated. A failure. Someone who has no control of their children whatsoever. Someone who has raised spoil rotten brats. Someone who is truly a bad mother. Someone just is the worst at motherhood.

Yesterday was a bad day.

But today is a new one. A reset button, a hope that it will be better than the last. A hope that I am really not a bad mother, but just someone who had a really bad bad day of parenting.

This is my life now.  There are a sprinkle of good days. Most OK days with it's moments of upset. And then once or twice a week, with some really horrible terrible days. The kind of days that makes me question, "Why did I want to be a parent again?". Don't get me wrong. My kids have their moments. I'm not going to claim that I am the Mother Theresa of Moms. Or that I they don't have their bad moments. We have bad days, and good days. We have moments of disrespect. Its all the learning process of development. School age kids learn how to test boundaries. What they can or cannot do. It really is a hard time to navigate this as a parent. But when the bad days happen, we reset, and it is Ok, we move on. It's a great learning experience. It's the "Ok, I shouldn't do this or say this, and I need to do this to avoid this behavior." And then we move on, to many good days and it's ok. Wow I'm okish at this parenting thing. I got it.

The problem is right now, I can't have this mentality. I don't know when a good day will happen. I don't know if doing X will avoid this X behavior, because I don't have the security blanket right now. That thing that can make it all better. I can't say, "Hey kids, if you make good choices today, we can go play at the park". Or "We can take a special trip to the candy store." Or "You can go to the grocery store and help me pick out a special snack." Or "Your friend can come play at our house this weekend". All I have is our house and backyard. And my kids are confined to this small space. I have to be creative with the rewards now. I have to be creative with how to get my kids engaged. I have to be the kind of parent that I was never prepared for.

My parents never had to experience this as parents. I'm resentful that I have to as a parent. What did I do to deserve this? This is not in the parenting handbook, (if there ever was one to begin with) This isn't anything my parents prepared me for. Why do I have to deal with this as a parent?

It's not fair. And I'm sure most parents feel this way right now. Drowning in sorrow and self pity. Suffering in sadness and anxiety. The fear of the unknown, or the when we will get back to the normal of our lives.  (or a new kind of normal for that matter) It's hard to want to move forward and face parenting with a clear mind, when its hard just to process all the feelings of the coronavirus and the isolation that we are experiencing. Its hard to put on a smile in front of your kids, when your fear and anxiety, emulates on them.

I could go on and on about how hard it all is. I'm sure we are all feeling it in different ways. This is something we were never prepared for, or thought could ever happen in our lifetime. And here we are with this life altering sudden unexpected way of life. In my family, we are always moving so fast. Karate, gymnastics, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, School, weekend, camp outs, outings, birthday parties, gatherings, repeat, again and again. Living the life. Keeping busy. Filling up that calendar. Moving forward. And then it just stops, all of it in one day. You think shit, what the hell am I supposed to do now? How can I move forward when its all be erased. The entire plan, the schedule. Gone.

If we can only imagine how hard this is for adults, don't forget how hard this is for children. It may be harder to see. Or realize. But its there. Kids internalize their feelings differently. Yesterday, made me realize this. My kids seem happy. My son and daughter play with each other outside everyday. Going to school at home was a fun new adventure. They were so excited to do home school. I was excited, I thought hey, I can do this. It's a cake walk. I'm a teacher, I know how to make this experience great for them. We will have a routine schedule similar to their school day. We will have a calendar and a dry erase board set up like a classroom. We will even have specials, and recess. We will make the days fun. It was great at first. But Wednesday, hit. Something about Wednesdays are the trigger bad days for my kids. There were meltdowns. There were "I don't want to do this" There was disrespect. There was fighting with each other. The bad Wednesdays continue. And other days, it would have its moments. Yesterday was the worst Wednesday of it all. It was April Fool's day. My son had a plan of the April Fools pranks that he was going to pull on me, his sister and my husband. He even woke up before we all did, to set up his his pranks. I thought it was going to be a great Wednesday. But something went awry. I'm honestly not even sure what it was. But then one bad thing after another happened. My son ran away in the middle of his lesson and school work. Slammed doors, and then my daughter followed. They ran around screaming outside. Going in and out of door. When I told them to come back in they just laughed at me and ignored me. This happened on and off throughout the day. At one point I just let them play. But then when it was time to do work, they couldn't stop messing with each other. At one point I was called stupid, and told to shut up.  My daughter kept calling me "Megan" instead of "Mom" There just was a lot of disrespect, and disregard. I was so upset. I wanted to tell my kids "When we were kids, we didn't treat our parents this way, why would you think it is ok to treat your parents this way?" But I stopped myself from saying that, because I realized as kids we never experienced this before. This uncharted waters. I have never been uprooted from my friends. Or told I can't go too my neighbors house to play because we can't get too close to each other.  I have never been out of school unexpectedly for over two months. I have never been away from my classmates abruptly without being able to see them. Life is different. My childhood and parents have not experiencing any of this. So how can I say to my kids that they should do what I did as a kid, when I have never experienced what they are currently?

I was so mad yesterday. I was about ready to unleashed a fury of anger at my kids. But I had to step away. I realized, what good is this going to do? This isn't their fault. They aren't acting this way intentionally. They really don't understand why they are acting the way they are. They don't cry about this, or write about their feelings about the coronavirus like I am doing right now. They show their feelings through their behavior, because they aren't sure how to feel about all of this. We can put on a good face, and make a warm loving environment free of fear and anxiety. But they still are going to feel it. They are sad. They are sad they can't see their friends. They are sad they can't go to school, and learn. All of this is hard, all I can do is not forget that I'm not a bad parent. And I'm not raising bad kids. I hope you don't forget this as well. We are all trying the best that we can. If you need to step away, and calm down for a moment, please do so. Don't take out your anger on your kids. Know that they are just small children. Experiencing something that kids can't process or understand like adults can. Hell I'm an adult and can barely process all of this.

Just know that you will have bad days as a parent. Way more bad days than you probably ever had so far as a parent. But don't let those bad days define you. Reset, restart and tomorrow will be a better day. Trust me. Today is a pretty good day here. And tomorrow may or may not be better. But that is ok. We are just taking this parenting thing one day at a time right now.

-Megan