A First Time Parent’s Confession

When I was pregnant I attended birthing classes, I ate right, I exercised (some), I created a birth plan. I felt in control and ready to roll. I knew how my birth was going to go, how my parenting was going to go, how my life was going to go.

I’m not sure where I got all that confidence but it was there.

Then came my birth. Despite taking care of myself very well, creating a birth plan and reading and researching everything I could possibly need to know to make informed decisions things went sideways.

Whether it was because of some of my decisions or not I don’t know, but my birth did not go as planned, and my daughter ended up being in the NICU for a week after she was born. This week in the NICU was probably more traumatic for me than for her.

I was told what to do, how to do it, and how everything I was doing was wrong by “professionals”, be it doctors or those NICU nurses. At the time I felt like I stood my ground quite well. We maintained our plans while we were in NICU and I did not let the “professionals” sway me from what I felt was right.

Here I am 2 years and 8 months later having the weekend from HELL with this “spirited” toddler of mine. This little girl is unlike any other child I have met ~ Ryan even said it over the weekend, she is NOT like other kids. I have been on “spirited child” email lists, I have read no less than every book available on managing a spirited child, and nothing.

We are in complete havoc around here, she doesn’t listen, I don’t follow through, and Ryan ~ well he just watches TV and shakes his head.

This weekend something happened ~ it was nothing different than what always happens, but this time it was the straw that broke the camels back. I just lost it. I had no desire to be around her, to see her, to talk to her to even be her mother. I stayed upstairs, and cried and felt like a miserable failure.

I did get online with a wonderful friend of mine who has a magical way with children. If I could be more like anyone as a parent ~ it would be like Mary K. She also did childcare in her home for many years and has dealt with MANY children. I got online with her and just asked some questions, about how she would handle things, and how to react to certain behaviors.

Here’s part of what’s happened, I have read so many “gentle parenting” books, and I totally believe in the law of attraction and allowing my daughter to deliberately create her life, I didn’t understand what it meant to be a PARENT within that framework.

Mary K is a fantastic deliberate creator and has been championing kids to do the same in their  lives forever, so she really helped me get clear on what it means to be a parent who raises deliberately creating children.

After that conversation I felt so much better. I felt better because the things she told me where the things it felt natural for me to do. They were the way I would have been parenting if . . . well if I don’t know what!!

Over the weekend we sat down and decided on some Lee Family Rules. We also decided on some Lee Family Consequences, and the Lee parents are now on the same page, and being a lot more consistent. The rest of the weekend went much better.

Which brings us here, to this happy Monday Morning. I woke up this morning with a realization. I love how I can work things out in my sleep and just wake up with an answer.

So this morning as I was waking up I realized, the whole experience with Hanna’s birth, and our first week in the hospital knocked my confidence. It knocked my confidence in my ability to parent and make decisions for this little child. The decisions I had made thus far had not turned out so well, and the decisions I was making during that week were being objected to by “professionals”.  So that’s where it started, I started buying books telling me how to parent ~ but none of them felt quite right (subconsciously I think), so I never implemented them ~ much.  So I bought more books, looking for someone who would tell me how to parent this child.

Here’s the problem with that. If I have no confidence in my ability to parent this child, no number of books is going to give that to me. No book is going to work, if I am unable/willing to make decisions and parent my child.

In the end it ends up that all the parenting books I have read have been a little at odds with how I feel a parent should behave and parent ~ so it’s no wonder I have been feeling conflicted for all this time. lol.

So I’m going to put the books away. I am going to play it by feel. I LOVE my child. I want what’s BEST for her. I am a GOOD person and I think that gives me the ability to make those decisions. With the best interest of my daughter at heart I am going to go forward making decisions based on what I feel is right for her, me and our family.