Apologising to our children

The end of last year was truly one of the hardest I have gone through in a long time. Sleep deprivation will do that to ya. So poorly in fact did 2024 drag my limp, hopeless, and bewildered self-hating body across the finish line that I have deemed it the year of the no good, dirty rotten pig stealing great-great grandfather (shout out to my millennial crew). It is testament, in fact, to the verity of the statement both/and that I can be writing this post with a touch of my go-to sardonic wit at the end of one of the worst parenting night-to-day events of my life. I mean I was not good, I did not good, I am (?) not good. That’s how crappy it was, I feel myself sinking to a low point, AND I can laugh at the fact that I made it through the day and isn’t it just silly how after a month of hardship and world-burning down natural disasters the tipping point that so easily unmoored me was something as simple and heart-achingly tender as my toddler waking up and crying out for me in the night. Or perhaps it was triggered by my mother saying “she hasn’t weaned yet?” with a slightly judgemental (imagined on my part I think) tone. Since we moved to the mainland I have felt myself in a constant state of panic about the changes facing us, in particular my role as a mother to my daughter who is now a person as opposed to just a baby which I realise now felt more like an accessory at times.

As my child has moved out of babyhood and is approaching toddler town she is going through some major shifts in her emotional state, the projection of her voice, her physical reactions and behaviours and parenting her has shifted a lot. Our family has had a lot of tumultuous occurrences over recent months which has added a lot of extra stress pushing me to the point of burnout and being overwhelmed. I feel so confused that I am in this position and frustrated that we are ill-prepared on a whole for what a lifetime of parenting truly, realistically is and means for us. Parenting a toddler, it is different to a baby and I am struggling with the expectation that I have to raise a full person to be who she is when I haven’t even really raised myself to be who I am yet.

I have this strange sensation almost daily. I feel as if I am ‘missing out’ on real life, or that in some way I am absent, invisible or ‘don’t count’. After all, much of my day to day goings on and production go largely unseen and majorly unacknowledged. This morning I made a decision to go to a coffee shop with my daughter, which we almost never do as she is a…how do I put this nicely…child who is in unceasing motion. So sitting down and enjoying a coffee is not a thing especially in a public space. It was a beautiful day however, and sitting outside was an option for us even though it is a far-too-bougie for bedraggled mom me and my hand me down clad child in SoCal Yoga Mom country. As we walked up, I glanced left and right at the tables of people sitting, sipping beverages, eating and reading books in the sunshine. In the quiet. It made me sad and I felt instantly frustrated at something I dearly miss. I snapped pointlessly at my 18 month old daughter “ugh look what I could do if I didn’t have you” and then immediately I felt guilty because she was being such a little joy running and giggling and the incongruence of my rush of irritation with her expression of contentment was too much to process. I ended up sitting in silence, feeling as if I was bouncing back and forth between states of consternation and contentment. Sometimes the feelings are too much for language and I see my mind shying away from directly confronting what is squatting front and center behind my eyes. Am I a bad mother? What does that even mean? Why do mothers wrestle with this question sometimes daily or even hourly?

Motherhood is a relentless activity with no real option to switch off or disconnect, not fully, not like before. Once that human is under your care you will always be on and it is exhausting and requires a universal, cosmic shift from the deepest marrow of your bones.I think it is a lifelong engagement with that energy of being shaped and formed within and without ourselves that takes up a lot of our mental and emotional space. This movement of the centre of your being, from belonging only to yourself to now belonging to another teacup human who relies on you for E V E R Y T H I N G, is one of the most massively devastating changes I have undergone. It is extremely hard to let go of who you were, how you lived and the life you envisioned for yourself as a feckless twenty year old with nothing but opportunity and horizons ahead.

It should be ok for parents to admit that there is a grief to be observed. This is all really hard, and I mourn what I had before. I have a very challenging time not resenting everyone around me who does not have a child. The endurance race of being a parent is made only the harder by all the noise, opinions, social statutes and limitations that we have to live under every single day in every decision we make and justify to all the onlookers. One thing that keeps my head from fully tottering off my body in rejection of the endless train of ‘not good enough’ thoughts, is coming to know that what I am experiencing in Motherhood is actually a universal experience. We all are thrust into a job with little to no preparedness or training and the demands and cost is quite high actually and it remains high for a lifetime. To know that other people feel as I do, that the rage and deep sadness I am often beset with is not abnormal and can be alleviated gives me hope and comfort.

I want to model healthy emotional regulation and expression to my child. In taking that approach that means I must acknowledge that I too fuck up and that forgiveness of the self is as important as forgiveness of others. I apologize to her as a way to share that I am a trying person who is becoming in parenthood while she is becoming in childhood. At this age I don’t expect she in any way understands what I am saying when I hold her and say “I am sorry I yelled and told you I resent you” but for me the practice of it will help me in two ways. Firstly, it will become easier for me to approach my relationship with her with an intention of humility, reciprocity and respect. Secondly, confronting aloud the negative emotional reactions I am having in such a way it can help lift the burden of shame. I obviously don’t want to be at breaking point but feeling ashamed about struggling is not going to help me address the root of the problem and grow through it.

Hold onto joy, chase it and lean into those things, whatever they may be that lifts you into life even, and especially, when it is fleeting. We must also learn to set aside bitterness. That great brute who eats away at our peaceable lives. He who whispers a plague of dissatisfaction to pull us down to the deep fearscape of our exhausted minds. For me, bitterness often sounds like thoughts that say our path remains harder than our neighbours and lead me to ask “What did I do to deserve this crap?” It’s not really about deserving or undeserving. All people have hardship, none of us get through this life unscathed.

If you, like me, feel shame at mistakes you have made in your parenting towards your child then feel assured we are in it together. All over the world, lights are on in the middle of the night as parents do the hardest job that can be asked of anyone anywhere. Positive mantra nonsense can often feel derivative and tends to fail to acknowledge the depth of pain we are in. I am all for seeking help when you need help and I know I do need help, but one thing that can be a balm as you try to find deeper healing is to reframe and reiterate. For me the sentence “My child is not being difficult, she is having a difficult day” has been one I have used a lot. I also tell myself when I am experiencing overwhelm, “The sun always sets, this too shall pass. (It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass)”. My sister shared this with me which I like, “It’s a good day until proven otherwise.” Hopefully there is some good takeaway here and for anyone who is really going through it I am here as a silent observer to your pain. I can’t fix it but I can sit with you in it. For now, I can be found looking at my daughter in amazement that every day she wakes up happy to see me no questions asked. I couldn’t ask for a better thing in life.