WHY PARENTING THESE DAYS IS SO HARD (Especially if you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s)

It has been a while since you have heard from me.  That’s because I burned out.  Like many moms with young kids, I was trying to do too much.  And then, while I was in recovery, I burned out again, because once again I was trying to do too much.  I have been spending this past year turning inwards and unpacking all of my old patterns that don’t serve me.  And that led me to this really big breakthrough.  It’s so big that I had to share it with all of you.  It’s too important not to.

It started with a visit to the craft store.  I am actively spending more time doing creative things as part of my healing process.  I decided that knitting would be an easy place to start because all it required of me was to buy a ball of yarn.  And it’s something I can easily pick up and put down and put away out of reach of the kids, who yes, needed their own yarn to “knit” with too.

So I told my spouse that I needed to go to the craft store.  I was shopping for yarn and kid friendly crafts to do with the girls.  We went into the store and I was happy.  This place was a YES for me.  The girls followed suit and started looking around and touching everything excitedly. 

And boom!  I immediately could sense the energy coming from my spouse.  He didn’t want to be there and he was getting overwhelmed.

As I wandered around the store and the girls touched more things, I could sense the frustration building in my spouse, and I could see that he was reaching his limit.

I thought, "I’m just quickly going to find what I need so that we can leave as soon as possible".  As I paid attention to the shelves, I was deeply aware that I was not paying attention to the girls, who were starting to now run around the store and away from us.  

And I felt guilty.

Now here is the pattern that I recognized for the first time in my life.  I minimize my own needs.  And when I do prioritize my needs I feel like I’m abandoning my responsibilities and that makes me feel guilty.  And I take responsibility for things that are not my responsibility.  In this case, how my spouse was feeling.  How he handles overwhelm is not my responsibility, and yet, I was rushing the shopping trip.  Minimizing what I needed in that moment and taking responsibility for making my spouse feel better.  In my haste, I completely forgot to look for something that was on my shopping list.  It’s a vicious cycle, and yet I was totally unaware that I was even doing it!

I didn’t think that I had a problem with “mom guilt” because defaulting to  feeling guilty was normal for me.

It stems from this:  

I was 11 years old when my youngest brother was born.  Often as an older sibling the baby was left in my care, sometimes without me being told I was supposed to be watching him.  When I was 12 my mom signed me up for a babysitting course, without consulting me.  And I was often supposed to babysit, without being asked or notified ahead of time.  Once even for another family who came to pick me up and I was caught completely unaware!

Like, WTF! Right!?

My older sister told me this story a while back: 

Apparently, once the baby was left on the couch beside me (which isn’t a safe place to put a baby). I was watching TV and hyper focused on what I wanted to do. The baby rolled off the couch and was crying on the floor.  I didn’t notice and of course I don’t remember this because I was never aware it was even happening. I said to my sister “I wasn’t old enough to be left alone with a baby”.  As a mother now I would never leave my infant alone with an 11 year old or expect them to be responsible for them. My sister’s response was “not really, at 11 years old my daughter was responsible enough to look after a baby".  Which dismisses my experience and reinforced the attitude of what we grew up with.  She missed the point. I was a kid. I shouldn’t have been expected to also be the mom.  And the baby never should have been left on the couch. That wasn’t my responsibility.

The behavioral pattern that I internalized was to always put other people’s needs before my own, even to the point of burnout.  TWICE!  And to take responsibility for everybody else, even for things that were never mine to worry about.  Looking after my own needs feels wrong and selfish.

In my family the adults looked after the basic physical needs.  Food, clothes, shelter, supplies, monetary costs, etcetera.  But mental and emotional wellbeing was never considered. 

Parents took minimal responsibility for their kids.  Kids were expected to look after each other.  If something went sideways, the kids were blamed and shamed for not being responsible enough.  If somebody was acting out, they just spanked them and moved on.

But in the 80’s and 90’s this was a very common family dynamic.  This was considered normal.  I was born in 1981 and so my formative years spanned the entirety of these two decades.  

These days we know that kids need much more than food and water.  Kids need emotional support, help with self regulation, boundaries, respect, fostering independence, unconditional love, affection and compassion.

We can’t just spank and move on.  And in modern times there are very real consequences for not being a responsible parent.  You can end up with your kids being taken away or even facing criminal charges.  This can even happen as the result of a misunderstanding and then you’re caught in a never ending sea of stress and paperwork.  As parents, this keeps us hyper vigilant over how we appear as parents.  Surrounded by previous generations who point and say “where are your baby’s socks”?  Ugh!

And because we grew up the way that we did, we don’t want to parent our kids the way that we were parented.  We want to do better.  And it takes constant work.  OMG so much work!

Pair that with doing this while minimizing our own needs, being overly responsible, dealing with other people’s unresolved trauma, unpacking our own trauma and all in the constant spotlight of social media.  It’s like trying to swim against a tsunami wave of gaslighting and social expectation.

So if you grew up in the 80’s or 90’s, and especially if you grew up in a similar family dynamic, this is why parenting feels so much harder now.

It is because it absolutely, positively and CERTAINLY IS harder.  So the next time you speak to someone (especially from your parent’s generation) who says something completely dismissive of your experience, like:

 “Parenting is easy”

You can tell them to go kick rocks!

And if any of this feels familiar to you then I hope you find this helpful.  But ALSO, I’m not responsible for your healing - and that’s a reminder for me.