Im no superhero… although I DO claim to be a Ninja. I am a pretty lame excuse for a Ninja. If you have read my blog posts in the past year you would know why. I fall down stairs… frequently. I trip on my own feet, get in wrestling matches with my shower curtain, fight with my pregnancy pillow and can’t even sneak away into the bathroom to poop without getting noticed. None the less, I am a Ninja and that’s the end of THAT debate.
But, back to my original point. I am NOT a superhero. I can’t fly or fight crime, I don’t wear tights… especially with my underwear over top of them in fear that will just accentuate my sausage link legs, I don’t drive a special car around Gotham city and I don’t shoot webs out of my sleeves… very often. So why does it feel like there is this pressure on me to be a Superhero when it comes to being a Mother? This is a pressure I put on myself that is accentuated by those glorified TV mom’s. Sometimes your mom friends or acquaintances that tell the stories of their perfect lives with their perfect children (who are usually stealing from the Bulk candy bin and chasing each other around the store pelting each other with hard candies while screaming) don’t help either. And while their Mothers are so focused on telling you how well behaved those kids are… implying they, themselves are amazing parents… their children are acting like hooligans! This however, leaves me thinking… if Little Man did that for one second.. we would be out of the store and in the car on the way home… and then I start wondering if I am too hard on him… and if her kids ARE happier than he is… because their Mother lets them act this way…
Sometimes I feel like I raise my voice a little too much with Little Man. I ask myself constantly if I am putting him in Time Out too often, or find myself longing for “Me time” for what feels like an eternity… and then I feel wrong. I feel the need to make myself feel like a bad Mother. I question myself and my parenting daily. I love my kids, I discipline (when they are old enough of course), I don’t stand for misbehavior or back talk. I am what I would call “Strict”… but I do it because I love them (I know, I sound like my Mother but it’s true) I just so badly want my Children to thrive and learn and BEHAVE. But most importantly I WANT, no NEED them to feel LOVED at the same time… ALL THE TIME. So, even when Little Man is getting in trouble for deciding that the floor is a fantastic place to draw a road for his cars to drive on… (Even though Santa got him some AWESOME racetracks this year… that weren’t cheap… Ho Ho Ho) and I put him in Time out and take away his crayons for the day… I tell him: “Mommy is Upset. I love you and you know you are not supposed to “enter ridiculous action here” so you are in time out for 3 1/2 Minuets and I am taking away your “Enter object used to commit or participate in ridiculous action here”. I try to make him feel that even though Mommy is disappointed/mad/frustrated, Mommy will always love him.. those moments included.
I CAN’T be Supermom. I just can’t. I am always going to question my methods, whether they are too strict or not strict enough. Or, if the course of discipline I took was fitting for the act he committed. Does anyone else do this to themselves? Does everyone else feel the pressure to be a superhero in disguise? Who knows!?
All I know is that I am going to stick to being a Ninja.. it’s SO much easier than being a Superhero… I can’t get tangled in a cape if I don’t wear one… one less thing to worry about.