I'm feeling a little grief at this tail end of the week. And I think I am finally able to name it, own it and talk about it.
At the end of our daughter's first year of preschool, we found ourselves at a crossroads. Our girl was too wild in the classroom, too aggressive with materials, and was hitting teachers. Without some work, she wouldn't be able to return. It stung. It still does.
It's not that we would ever expect someone else to tolerate behavior that we also find challenging at home, but no matter how you look at the situation, it feels like someone is telling you that you have "a bad kid." And inevitably, and especially, as a mom, you feel like you are to blame. It doesn't matter that I always try to address and correct unacceptable behaviors as they happen. It matters that I have "failed."
And now, it really feels like failure, because in spite of weeks of play therapy, working to change the way I connect and communicate with her, and encouraging her to be everything I know she can be, my little girl will not be returning to preschool with her friends on Monday. It doesn't even matter that the decision was mutually reached, and I feel the best for her. What does matter is that I know in my heart of hearts that if I let her go back, it would only be a matter of time before we were told she couldn't come back. And I would have that failure on my heart as well.
I didn't manage to help her get back to the school that I unwittingly chose for her, while I sat in a waiting room flipping through a local magazine, just months after she was born.
She'll be fine. I honestly don't think she cares. In fact, I know she doesn't. She just wants to run around naked, eat cookies and ice cream, and watch her TV. When it's nice out, she wants to take her naked party outside, play with the hose, and dump bottle after bottle of bubbles. When she doesn't get to do these things, she becomes an almost rabid animal, full of rage, and unable to control her hitting hands and kicking feet.
In those moments, I both don't know who she is, and at the same time feel I might be seeing her in her purest form. It's the form that fights for what she wants. It's why people are always saying that her strong-will is going to serve her well--later. She's a fighter, even if right now what she's just fighting to remain overtired and refuse a nap. It's the form that makes me yell like I swore I never would, cry in fits of helplessness, and even question whether she would respond to a swat on the backside--something I will never do. In those moments, I know I don't know who I am, and I know that I am forgetting who I want to be.
She's going through a phase right now--a very extended phase--in which she claims to be a puppy a fair sixty percent of the time. It makes me crazy. Our therapist suggested she may be doing it, because she hasn't been successful being "a girl." She doesn't know that for sure, but it's one of the theories she's put forth this week.
How do I process that? How do I process that my daughter pretends she's a puppy most of the time because she feels she has failed at being a girl? How at three years old does my daughter feel like a failure at anything? Just thinking those words breaks my heart as much as any time she has pushed us so far that either I or her daddy have unleashed the scary loud voice that immediately reduces her to sobs. And it all reduces me to tears.
There was never a time I imagined that being a parent would be easy. There was never a time I wanted being a mother to fit into some personal fantasy box that many of us imagine while picking out layettes, and painting nurseries. I just wanted to give someone a life, and to let her become whomever she was meant to be. I just never imagined how inorganic that could feel at times, and especially with the pressure of shoehorning her into someone else's view of what a good three-year-old is.
I know she will be fine. I know not going back to preschool on Monday will not define her. I know that if she doesn't go back in January, that won't define her either. But I am still sad she won't see her friends everyday. I am still sad that it will be easy to fall out of the community again, because school life, work life, and the rest of the world will spin on. Without her. Without us.
And then, there is the selfish side that makes me sad. None of this defines her--even if she is a "bad kid." But that doesn't change how harshly I feel about, and judge myself. I think we all believe that we are "better than this"--whatever the situation may be. We were going to get it more right than our parents did. It doesn't matter how little I would have to do to improve on that from my own case. I was going to be the mom who had her shit together, and could hold her shit together. I'm not.
As I beat myself up, and the random person reading thinks I am just being way too hard in myself, I also admit to feeling sad about losing the little nugget of time I had each day to remind myself that being a mother isn't everything I am. It's the time I used to help keep my head in the game--to give myself strength for all the battles.
I wish I could say that I am prepared to dig in, and grit my teeth. Of course, prepared or not, I will do both. I just know that it's another period of my life for which I just have no other option than to toughen up. Precisely the opposite thing I ever envisioned doing as a mother. I knew I wouldn't be like my mom. I knew that I would set ground rules. I knew I would be a mother instead of a best friend to her as she grows. I just never imagined her will would be so strong, that I would at times find myself gasping for air, and wandering around in the dark.
We will be each other's brick wall--that immovable force that we run into, headlong. And when we are bloodied, and panting in the rubble, we will be each other's soft place to land. It's just going to take some getting used to.
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