Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-06-11 - 10:44 a.m.

I Hate My Children

Oh yes, I do, I really really do. It's eight o'clock at night, prime time for hating your children, and I am thinking impossibly ugly thoughts. I don't want to do this anymore, I don't even like you little people, I can't believe all the crap casserole I eat in the name of parenting.

Stop.

If you don't have kids, please don't read any further. You probably won't know what I'm talking about, and you may wonder of YOUR parents ever felt that way about YOU, which of course they did, but they didn't have online journals. And this may frighten you, because I think you may have to be a parent to understand how you can totally love someone and really never want to see them again, all in the same evening. Maybe not. But if this all seems completely bizarre and frightening, it's only going to get worse from here. Quit while you're ahead.

Older child has lost her music folder, and tomorrow night is the big concert. She must have it. Where could it be? She has looked all over, which means she has stood in the living room watching the television and idly poking around under the couch during the commercials. It means she has gone out to the garage to search the car, and has ended up being more interested in boxes of my things out there, and has brought things into the house asking if she can have them, or worse, today, if she can SELL them. And when I tell her the things marked for Goodwill are going to Goodwill, and no she can't sell them, she swells up like a cobra and starts hissing about "then don't ever ask ME for money again." Did I ever ask her for money? When pressed, she admits that I borrowed from her for the pizza man last year, and paid her back promptly. For some reason I did not know that this gave her an ever-after license to sell my stuff when she wanted to. Not reading the fine print again, I guess.

But we still have to find this music. So I spend well over an hour looking, in the car, in the house, everywhere I can think. She watches the TV, which is actually all right with me because she only gets in my way. I do not find the music, even in her messy room, although I do find two of my books flung under her bed, and rescue those. She sees me come out with them and screeeches "Did you go in my ROOM???"

Well, gee, I suppose I did. And I also suppose I'm done looking, and her only possible chance now is to phone another flutist and ask them to bring the music to school tomorrow; I will pick it up and drive to the drugstore where I can make copies.

She doesn't LIKE to use the phone. She will just wait and see if anyone brings the music to school tomorrow. Grrrrrrrrr.

Then it's dinner, and younger child's shift at mommy-provocation. She doesn't like the dinner. She only likes the oranges. Are there any more? Why not? The sandwich is yuckky. The soup is yuckky. She can't eat it. She likes turkey, and bread, but not together. She can't eat them apart, either, because now the bread is hard and the turkey doesn't taste good. Why can't she have something ellllllllllse? She doesn't like this kind of soup any more. Why don't I ever listen to her? She doesn't want a different dinner, only she can't eat this soup and she wants another sandwich, only a different kind, and why am I so mean?

Then it is after dinner, and older child's turn again. She wants help with the computer, but when I walk over there I step, barefooted, into a big icy marsh on the rug. What the HELL? She has spilled her ice water, and she knew it, and she was going to clean it up - in a while.

I am left with the mess in the kitchen, and the mess from the day, and the messy choice: make them do it and take the battering that comes with it, or do it myself. And I know which is the right choice, the choice that will make them better people and me a better parent, but I'm hating them, so I do it myself.

Now, of course, this all seems incredibly petty, and I seem incredibly petty to myself for not wanting to tuck them in sweetly and sing to them. I will. But I don't want to, I don't I don't I don't you can't make me.

I want another role in this game, one that doesn't mean I am supposed to be reasonable and adult when other people are MEAN to me, and say I did stuff I didn't do, and never say thank you to me and hurt my feelings all the time. I quit, I'm not playing with you any more ever.

So there, you little monsters. I love you, but I really can hate you too.

�

previous - next

�