I blew up at my kids last night.
Mostly in my head, fortunately, but I know they felt the repercussions.
Nothing that big or bad even happened to cause a blow up, but when the weight of all the little things piles up, one more problem – in this case, incomplete homework – becomes a breaking point.
I sent both kids to bed and closed myself off in my room. Normally I read to them (we’re about halfway through the sixth Harry Potter book, a series they’ve been loving), and I sing to each kid and rub their backs.
But I just couldn’t make myself do it.
And they didn’t understand why, and I couldn’t articulate it. I couldn’t explain to my 10-year-old why I was laying on my bed in the dark, sobbing, when I could hardly explain it to myself.
Being a single mom sucks a lot of the time. Most of the time, really. It’s so incredibly hard to always have to be the responsible one. When the dishwasher, the garage door, and the front door latch are ALL not working, AGAIN!, and there’s dinner to be made, and Christmas presents to buy, and little money to buy them with, and a full-time job that’s miserable far too much of the time, and kids who want to be listened to – who deserve to be listened to! – and so very many homework assignments that need to be done.
I so very much hate homework. Side note: Homework is generally a waste of time anyway. There’s all sorts of research the proves it. At the elementary level, homework makes ZERO difference in students’ academic achievement, and it’s only minimally more effective as kids get older. Why teachers still think it’s a good idea baffles me. Time spent with family, time playing games together, being active together, reading together. Those things make a difference. That’s how our time in the evenings should be spent.
I will step down off my soapbox now.
Last night the kids’ dad came by to tell them goodbye. He leaves today for a week in Hawaii with his girlfriend. This will be his second trip to Hawaii in two years.
I haven’t been on a vacation longer than three days since 1998.
So I’m jealous of the time he gets away, pissed at myself that I can’t seem to make that happen for me. That I don’t have the time or the money and that I feel like I’m drowning in obligations. I need some time for me, but I don’t think I even know what “time for me” actually means or would look like.
I’m jealous, pissed, frustrated, and just so very tired, and so I shut down, ignored my kids, and cried myself to sleep.
And then had to face the kids this morning to apologize.
If there’s one parenting skill I think I’m pretty good at, it’s apologizing to my kids when I screw up. Certainly I get enough opportunities to practice.
Since my daughter has to be at school so much earlier than my son, I took him to a coffee shop this morning for some cocoa and one-on-one time to help make up for last night. The sun was just coming up, and the sky was all cotton candy clouds in pink and blue. It was a nice morning.
I’ll give my daughter some attention when she gets home from school, though hers will be in the less fun format of working on dividing decimals in her math homework packet. Ugh.
And I’ll try to be a better mom. That’s all I really can do, is to just try again.