If you think you are a good parent, chances are you have an easy kid.
I liken parenting to one’s metabolism. There are some people out there who hit the metabolism jackpot and can eat their weight in poutine, never exercise and still manage to easily slip into their size two jeans. There are other people out there who may also happen to wear size two jeans but who wake up at 5:30 every morning to work out until they feel like barfing, who only eat lettuce and tuna for lunch, and who have to religiously monitor their food intake and exercise regime or else they will gain ten pounds in their sleep.
Both are in size two jeans, but one is doing it with ease and the other is fighting every second of the day for it. If you’re parenting with ease, you probably have an easy kid. But if you’re fighting for it, fighting for a bit of enjoyment in your parenting experience, you are probably just normal and your kid is extra-challenging and it’s OK (rather, it will be OK…when they are old enough to go to school).
Having a hard kid makes parenting a lot less fun. The days are filled with tantrums, time-outs, poorly-executed discipline, and general awfulness. Things that are supposed to be fun are NOT FUN. It’s frustrating and disappointing.
The self-doubt is crippling. The parent of a hard kid looks at everyone else’s seemingly civilized children, the ones who are just sitting still and sipping a cocoa at the coffee shop instead of hurling her cookie on the floor, stamping on its crumbs, making a break for the door, screaming like a banshee, all because her mom said she had to put her coat on. You wonder what you’re doing so wrong, how it’s possible to fail so miserably.
The guilt is equally horrific. You know ‘the days are long but the years are short’ (so says every old lady at the grocery store) but you count down the hours till bedtime, then feel guilty you wished the day away. Who can blame you, though? The day might have really sucked. It’s OK to wish some of them away.
My two older girls were pretty hard to live with until they turned four. I’m serious. The days were long but SO WERE THOSE YEARS, Grocery Store Grandma.
Now, though, they are delightful. (They are still really strong-willed and wild, but it’s so much better than it was.) Hard kids can turn into awesome kids. If, in those trying years at home with little ones, I had been able to peek a few years into the future and hear my daughters’ teachers rave about their empathy and kindness and good attitudes, it would have made those hard days and years so much more bearable. They are growing into beautiful, fantastic little people and I look back at their challenging toddler and preschool years and wonder in awe at how we made it through, and also how much they have changed and blossomed.
Here’s to hard kids! Who grow up to be amazing!
And here’s to their parents, who claw their way through the tough days! You are amazing too!
So true. My second is a whole different beast than my first, and while he’s not impossible, I’m still waiting for it to get easy…
What a great, honest post Amanda.
I had an easy baby. A VERY easy baby. She slept anywhere and everywhere and I swore if they were all that easy I would’ve had eight. But then around 7, things began to change, and we went through some difficult years. Well, okay, some hellish years. Now, six years later, I think we’re through to the other side, but during the hard times I doubted every fibre of my parenting and heaped a plentiful serving of blame and guilt on myself.
In the end though, it has all been worth it. She’s a gem of a teenager and I am loving getting to know this thoughtful, smart and funny young lady of mine!
i think it’s funny that you took that picture! i have one of each of my girls crying when they were babies cuz i didn’t want to forget. we always try to take the pleasant, smiling ones and then we forget how they looked with another emotion.
i think i’m lucky so far. a nice mix of easy and hard tossed together with a nice splash of red wine…fingers crossed!
THANK YOU!!!! Someone had to say it…
I was blessed to have 2 easy kids as bookends to my boy with autism.
He’s a tough one.
I basically wanted to snip out the ages of 2.5 – 3.5. With ease, and with relish – that stage in time was BRUTAL. You hang in there, lady! You’re doing it!! 🙂
Kaylie was definitely an easy kid. I didn’t have any friends to compare myself to, though, because I was the only one with a kid. She just fit into my life easily and I could still do most of whatever I wanted to. And then I had Liliana and oh my word, this line: “hurling her cookie on the floor, stamping on its crumbs, making a break for the door, screaming like a banshee, all because her mom said she had to put her coat on” … Yup, that is so her. I didn’t think I was a super parent before I had her, but I sure learned quickly to pass less judgment on mothers whose kids blew gaskets in public! Four was the worst. I actually had to put her in her room and close the door and go scream somewhere so that I didn’t hurt her. Because I had many times where I was THISCLOSE to beating her to a pulp. (This is also why I always had to take deep breaths and calm myself before spanking her, because I never want to do it out of anger, but rather her just needing a swat on the tush.)
I’ve seen you in action, and even just by reading your statuses/posts, I know that you’re a fantastic mom. You SURVIVED those years! And now I hope you reap all the rewards of your hard work. 🙂
You know what makes having a “hard kid” even harder? Having had two “easy kids” first!
I can imagine! Our “easy” kid was our third and she restored my faith in me a little, knowing we really don’t do much to affect the core of our children’s personalities. Crazy!
Yes! Hard kids DO grow up to be amazing and strong and independent and driven. But MAN. Those first few years? Hell.