I deserve either a medal or a public flogging. Yesterday I managed to be some odd incarnation of myself. Possessed with the spirit of awful, I went off the rails twice: once with the 15-year-old and once with the dog; and to complete the “bad things come in threes” truth, blew it with my son–on his 11th birthday.
There aren’t too many days when I look at myself, in my role as parent, and ask whether I have any business calling myself someone’s “mother.” Fewer are the day that I wonder whether others look at me and feel pity for my poor children who are stuck with someone so “unfit” for parenting. The former happens about twice a year; the latter once every five years or so.
Yesterday was one of the rare days to feel shame and self-loathing, to go to bed heavy in guilt, and to awaken to the looming disappointment that today is not “a new day and things will feel better,” despite my spouses assurances.
While it’s tempting to play the “relativism game” and compare myself to chronically abusive and tyrannical parents of rumor or popular culture to make myself “feel better,” I won’t.
I don’t feel any better in comparison to them. Instead, I feel like one of them.
I won’t be receiving any medal from these horrific parents who might otherwise compliment my techniques of abysmal parenting. I won’t be dragged from my home to the town square and whipped for punishment.Instead, I will continue the self-flagellation until the intensity of memories fade, though I’m not sure just how long that will be.
Jenna Brownson 
Perhaps you will feel better after this confession. You are now my role model, and from now on, I will strive to reduce the frequency of questioning how I could have possibly thought I’d be fit to be anyone’s mother from twice a month to twice a year.
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Thank you for making me laugh, Alissa. I’m so glad that my post made you reframe your own self-flagellation.
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When I was a parent to children the age of yours I didn’t have a Blog to use for my confessional. I had to live with it until I made it right with each of the children directly. Not going into historic details, but at the end of each one on one talk I found reconciliation to be sweet. I also learned that each of my children knew intuitively that I was suffering as much as they and that we both felt peace and love after the time together. The rest of the family knew it as well. This model actually served me well in managing people in business many times.
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Thank you, Bob. My apologies to you and Bev for being a lunatic last night. I hope you’ll see it as an aberration. I promise you, as a grandfather to my children, my insanity was not the beginning of a new trend in awful parenting.
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Not to worry, last evening was very pleasant and Salem was delighted with his birthday celebration. That’s what was important.
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He was a bit of a nut, wasn’t he? This morning on his way out the door, he said, “Thanks for the best birthday ever, yesterday.”
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Parenting. Is. Hard. And I only have one.
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Thanks, Tina.
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the fact that you care enough to even have these feelings means that you are a better mother than most.
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Thank you, Sarah.
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