How Do I Want My Kids to Remember Me? Not Like This, That’s For Damned Sure.

Someone asked this online, and I responded with a pseudo-joke. I said, “Right now, if I died, they’d remember me as a dragon lady always yelling at them. I’d really prefer they remember me laughing and making them laugh, coming up with creative adventures, as honest and real and kind. But mostly I think they’d stand up at my funeral and talk about how I withheld snacks. What about you?”

A good friend called me out on my evasive techniques, noting that I shrugged it off with a joke and then handed it off to others to answer, instead of actually giving a solid answer. The truth is, I don’t want to answer it sincerely, because the answer breaks my heart. Especially this week. Yesterday, they started back at school very very part-time (like under 2 hours/day, only 2 days/week), for the first time out of the house in over a year. We’ve done three different kinds of school models since COVID started, and I’ve had to limp my way through those decisions as mom/teacher/home leader.

This week, we’re fresh off a “vacation” where all they did was fight and watch TV, and all I did was yell at them and drink wine. Yesterday, for the ten-thousandth time, when it was time to do schoolwork, I dragged a kid out from under a table where she was loudly refusing to do anything, and plopped her in a chair. I held her in place as she strained and fought to get away from her computer. I wasn’t angry, I was just resigned to be bouncer. Again. She was ok, fine, by my estimation not hurt or even that scared, just kind of annoyed that she was being told what to do and forced to do it. I thought it wasn’t too big a deal, but my husband, taking a rare day off of work, witnessed it and it freaked him out. He seems to think I’m abusing our kids now. He says he hears me yelling at them while he’s trying to work in another room, and he’s convinced I’m cruel and out of control. I don’t even know how to respond, because it was such a typical, regular moment in our mom/teacher, kid/student lives, that now it has me wondering if I’m mistreating them ALL the time?

All the work I do for and with them doesn’t matter if I’m hurting them; the rewards chart, the motivation, the parenting books and podcasts I listen to, the ten different ways I’ve tried to beg, bribe, coax, or encourage them to do it before I yell or physically hold them down…all moot. So now I’m fearful that if we divorce, I’ll lose the kids, because he’ll say I abuse them. And now I kind of want to divorce because it means I’ll only have to parent half the time or not at all.

So, to answer the question of how will my kids remember me….I hate how my kids know me, see me, will remember me. I hate it. This person, “mom” is never who I want to be, for anyone to have to know. She’s always freaking out and sad and worried and mad. She is overwhelmed by her life, she is struggling at it, and they, the children, suffer. I like my kids a whole lot, but don’t like the mom role, and don’t feel I’m especially gifted at it. AND THEY KNOW THIS. They’re not dumb. They know it when people are out of their element, they know parenting stresses me out. What does that do to their little psyches? We’ll see!

I’ve always felt like I’m failing a bit, but it’s usually with a small ‘f.’ Now, since I’ve given up or lost my job(s)/career, free-time, hobbies, and any other identity, and only devote my time and self to parenting and homemaking (and moving, and teaching), I am an all-around Failed person who can’t even get the one thing I DO do right. This is all I do and am, and I am bad at it.

When I was working or running a business or pretending to be a writer, and I got impatient, angry, critical, sarcastic, at my kids, I’d feel badly, but I assumed it was because I was stretched thin between work and parenting. I had assumed that if I could just do the parenting thing, I’d be cool as a cucumber and they’d thrive and we’d all be better. But doing it full-time during a pandemic is more than I ever bargained for. Now, when I’m too physical with them or too loud in my rage, too exasperated at having to ask them to do the SAME thing for the six-hundredth time, the shame is complete. I was miserable going to work and then coming home to this second full-time job, but now doing this full-FULL time is also miserable. So I can safely conclude I’m just a miserable person. Or a miserable mom. And I fear that’s how they’ll remember me.

When I used to go to work, at least I could feel accomplished and dignified and recognized, and heal a bit from the parenting fails. Now my days are just more of the same. There’s no respite. What I do all-day is the same thing I do all night and all weekend and all vacation and all always. I thought I’d adjust to that, adapt, deliver. I’m not.

And there’s nothing I can really do about it. Like even if trying my hardest, doing my best, I might be the WORST thing for our kids, but I’m all we have. When daycare is safe again, I guess I’ll go back to work to pay for it. That’s the only thing I keep hanging on to. And I’ll write when they graduate and leave, I guess.

I’m not sure what to do with that. I KNOW I don’t deserve pity, because most moms right now are having to straddle not disappointing people at work AND home, and since I have a poor sugar daddy behind a door hearing all my bluster, and I don’t have to make a paycheck, all I have to do is NOT scream at my kids and mop the kitchen floor again. I know I should be grateful and be improving. I’m just not. I’m tired and angry, mostly at myself.

I hope this period is just a blip in my kids’ memories of their lives, and of me. When I watch old videos of us when they were really little, I’m pleased to see how loving and funny and silly and fun I am with them, how safe and comfortable and happy they are with me. MAYBE they’ll remember that version of me, but I fear they’ll remember this maxed-out, bored but over-worked, exhausted, furious mom. We’ll see!