So I’ve been privy to those parents that say “She lets her kid do whatever she wants….” “No wonder she’s got no respect, she has no boundaries….” “Have you heard the language she uses?” “I don’t want my child in her class or anywhere near her, she’s a bad influence….”’
In prep I knew that even Mothers that I coffee’d with regularly had called the school and demanded that my daughter not be in their child’s class the following year, or even again in fact…. Yes, it was really painful and hurtful to hear, but I understood it. No-one quite got the complexity of her, or what she was actually trying to say or do. She never got it 100% right, never said the right thing at the right time…. She never made the team, so to speak. In prep by mid-year she had her own table at the front of the class as no one would sit next to her because without knowing it was not the right thing to do, she would talk to them excitedly all of class, even when they were supposed to be quiet, and doing work, or listening to the teacher. Yet if they didn’t listen to her stories she would threaten them. Each day she cried on the way home from school, and asked me repeatedly why she was so different from everyone else in school? Why did they not think the same way? Or understand her jokes? She started doing really silly stuff because at least the grade 5 and 6’s would laugh in hysterics, which was the closest thing to having positive attention or a friendship she had. They would take her out to the oval and let her say inappropriate things for their friends to laugh at, and they’d teach her inappropriate things to say later in class in front of the teacher, not realising how bad it was, or how much trouble she’d get into. She finally felt like she had mates, but instead she spent the second half of prep being forced to eat her lunch in the principal’s office, in shame. What a fabulous start to life she had.
I had an amazing bunch of supportive friends at the time, and cofee’ing with these gals made it all bearable…. And from three year old kinder till grade two, we were inseparable. They made it all seem worthwhile, and like I was “one of them.” Daughter number two came along when Daughter number one was in four year old kinder, so I had plenty to keep me busy. Her diagnosis came two weeks before her sixth birthday after I’d taken her to every therapist under the sun from the age of fourteen months old…. I knew she was “different.” I just didn’t know why or what. The incredible paediatrician that I finally stumbled across was an Aspie himself, so he picked it within ten minutes. His words exactly “Emma, Do you feel like you’ve been smashing your head against the wall for six years?” I crumbled after this, and fell to pieces. Someone finally believed that my gut instinct had been right, that this beautiful, yet challenging child had a reason, and a pretty good one, for her poor social skills and behaviour. The relief was overwhelming, and my late husband and I researched like crazy people on everything Asperger’s, and what it meant for our little family. We told her straight away, and the relief in her was also incredible.
The relief lasted 48 hours at most, before we realised what it meant for us all. This was a lifelong thing, and it would shape our future into something that we hadn’t planned. And it did.
Skip forward nearly eight years, five different schools, a complete change of friendships group for me, a thousand changes of friendship groups for her, an anxiety ridden sister who lacks the appropriate attention from her mother, the death of her Dad and my beautiful husband, a few years of grieving hell, multiple therapists, a new partner, three new step brothers for the girls, a house move, a few holidays from hell, an influx of hormones, a new diagnosis of PMT, six months of on and off school refusal, a new era of self-harming, two stints in a psychiatric hospital, an attemped Bachelor Degree, sleepless nights/months/years, a teenager that loathes her Mum mostly, a birth father that is no longer able to contact her, a few runners where she’s been chased into the streets of strange towns, and now a night of searching for her after she never came home from school…… until ten pm at night….. And well, let’s just say that the child that I created, has now created a mother that I despise.
I call it a Spectrum of Motherhood, because we don’t know in advance what type of Mother we will become. Will we be the cotton wool variety that never let our kids do anything for themselves in fear that they will break something? Will we let them grow up free range, and climb anything and everything to the despair of onlookers? Or will we set such strict guidelines that come hell or high water, we will follow them no matter how tough the consequences? There is no “right.” This is just what comes naturally…. And what comes naturally is not always what we had planned in advance. In fact, I think if you hope that you’ll be the parent you’d always dreamed of, you will be bitterly disappointed at some stage.
I am now parenting a strong minded, severely anxious, sexually inquisitive, hormonal, defiant and desperate to do anything to fit into society, teenager. And I would rather go to prison. Is it okay to say such a thing? Well, no…. it’s not. It’s socially unacceptable. Because we’ve built this society where we’re supposed to pretend like we have it all together. Just look at all of your Facebook feeds….. Everyone is so happy, and they’re all on a constant adventure, their family holiday photos show that they’re in family heaven, and look, their star kid got another award at school, or is now in the advanced class because they’re super bright, and the parents are still so in love, even 20 years later, and blah, blah, blah. Damn, I’m so envious….. To be truthful, I don’t know anyone in “Real Reality”, not the “Online Altered Reality” that is created on social media, that isn’t struggling just a little bit.
I am. Struggling just a little bit. And that was an enormous understatement. With Mother’s day pending, I have been forced to face the facts….. that it isn’t what I was hoping it would be. I’m sure I will look back on this last 13 years one day and laugh…. Like it was a little bit humorous, and that the constant challenges that were thrown at us were “just to test the strength of this old family.” It’ll be a real gas to talk about it all in the past tense, when we’re on the other side of this parallel universe.
But I’m just not sure how to get to the other side, when I can’t even get through this one.
I just want my kids to go to school, to be happy, to be safe, not to be bullied, or be the bully, laugh, live life to the fullest, make friends, have boyfriends that treat them with respect (or girlfriends), not take bad drugs, or drink too much, or become addicted to cigarettes, or feel that they have to act and dress a certain way, or upload sexy photos to social media to fit in (cause everybody does it)…. I want them to enjoy being a kid, a pre-teen, a teenager, a young adult and then hopefully, if all goes to plan, a healthy adult with their head screwed on straight.
Is this too much to ask for? I still remember Mum always said when I asked her what she wanted for Mother’s day each year “I just want my girls to be happy and healthy.” I used to get cross and ask her what she really wanted…. Now I understand that she really wanted just that.
Hey Mums of difficult kids…. you’re doing okay, better than you think, and your kids don’t define you. They will eventually be alright, and at the very least, more independent of you, and then you can start the next chapter of your life where you get to be a little more selfish, and make decisions not purely based around them. They will always know you adore them, but they won’t rely completely on you…. there is a light at the end of this looooong tunnel.
Happy Mother’s Day. xxx