‘I didn’t know it was going to be like this.’
whatever else she was going to say was interrupted because she accidentally stuck a nappy pin into one of Clifford’s rare moments of peace and he went very red and started to scream and scream until poor Nell shook him before bursting into tears herself and exclaiming to Frank, ‘I didn’t know it was going to be like this.’
Behind the Scenes at the Museum has been sitting out for months now on my Book Stack of Reproach, as I’ve wanted to quote and quote again from it. I was shocked at the recognition of feeling when I read the above passage. I’ve felt that way so many times. It’s ugly, but it’s also sometimes true.
A French author, Corinne Maier, is getting a lot of press for having the audacity to write a book called No Kid: Forty Reasons Not to Have a Child, and to say that she sometimes regrets having kids. (Links via Bookslut Blog.) I try to write parenting anecdotes I don’t think my kids will mind reading in ten years, but I’m tempted to be honest here in a way that could easily be misunderstood.
Like Maier, I sometimes feel regret about having kids, rather in the manner of “Calgon, take me away!” While it feels perilous to admit this, I don’t think it’s either/or. It happens about once a morning when I am not able to meet some basic need of my own, like having breakfast or getting dressed, and the boys are screaming and fighting. The moment and the feeling both pass, and develop context.
Lately, I’m trying something new. Since these incidents occur almost every morning, I flirted with the idea of embracing the chaos. That was too much to contemplate. Instead, I’m trying not to mind the scream fests, meaning let them bother me, or attend to them (unless I suspect grievous bodily harm, which does often occur.) This new “trying not to mind” strategy is working pretty well. I find myself appreciating parenting more often, and wishing it away less often.