I'm a SAHM with two DD's, one 6 y/o and one 8 months. I feel like with my newest daughter, I was ready to be a mom. I got sober when I found out I was pregnant with my first DD, so I'm pretty positive I wasn't ready for parenthood at that time. It was the kick in the toosh that turned out to be exactly what I needed, but at what cost to her? I didn't have my head on straight back then, so-to-speak, and luckily between the two I figured out quite a bit and believe myself to finally be on the right track, both in life and motherhood. But what about DD 1? She had a good foundation with me, attachment parenting, cosleeping, extended breast feeding, and gentle discipline till she was about 3 years old and really started testing my patience. It was then that I realized I had just as much patience as my own mother (none really to speak of). I started to scream when frustrated, at her or just near her, I'm sure was all the same to her in the end. She spent a couple of years in daycare at that time as well so I could pursue a career that I thought I wanted and that also hindered our relationship and her behavior greatly. I spent a couple of years being really kind of angry and selfish (age 2-4 for DD 1), and I feel like I emotionally abandoned her when she was no longer a cute helpless baby. The deep sadness and regret that I feel for the harm I have caused our relationship feels like a steel blade that will forever be lodged in my heart.
She is quick to anger and has little control over her emotional outbursts (though I can see that she desires control of them), she tries to hide her feelings from me and that is one of the largest contributing factors to her tantrums. She doesn't want me, or anyone else for that matter, to know if she makes a mistake, gets hurt, feels sad or left out or embarrassed. It goes so far that she even gets mean if someone gives her a gift, she doesn't even want people to know that she feels pleasing emotions--- gratitude, joy, love. If I want to give her something and her to like it, I've learned to go to elaborate lengths to pretend I'm not giving it to her. We're about a year into mommy learning a great deal about patience, and are making some headway yes,.... but I feel like I've created this little person who is always trying said patience, and I'm really still in the learning and beginning steps of awareness process. I don't so much yell and scream anymore, but the tone in my voice can often times be just as damaging. It's like the tone just seeps out, I've spoken before I'm aware of the energy of my words. That tone my mom used so often, just as mindlessly if not more so, the one that made me feel about 2 inches tall. The tone that left me to wonder if she could still love me since she obviously despised my behavior so much. I am working to eradicate the tone but it still slips. My mother and I will never be close, I don't even hold out hope anymore. There is a numbness to our dealings with each other, a sort of relational prozac. I don't want that for me and my daughters, and I'm scared that it may be too late with DD1. How do I begin to repair what I've done? And it's not like I was/am that awful.... there is the added fact that she is so super sensitive. She truly is magickal, one of the crystal children. She really needed/needs a froo frooey, gooey, gushy, lovey dovey happy hippy granola mama.... someone with a soft voice, sweet smile, and endless patience. And while this is the mom I've surely been working on growing into, she's been with me from the start of things and has been all wrapped up in my growth process. She is at once both delicate and demanding, a high needs child that would represent a parenting challenge to the most seasoned of moms. I truly believe the only solution to the difficulties currently between her and I is reconnection. How do I begin to mend the connection, reweave the silver thread that connects her and I, mother and daughter, to one another and to the greater world? Please, if anyone has any experience/advice/info...... please share. The distance between DD1 and I feels like miles, with every parenting mistake I make only driving us faster apart. I miss my little girl, I love her with all of my heart and soul, and I'm soooo sooo, so very sorry that she had to be there for my growing up. And at the same time, so very grateful to be on the right track, some people never do make it. I feel for my own mother and all that she missed out on as I was growing up.
She is quick to anger and has little control over her emotional outbursts (though I can see that she desires control of them), she tries to hide her feelings from me and that is one of the largest contributing factors to her tantrums. She doesn't want me, or anyone else for that matter, to know if she makes a mistake, gets hurt, feels sad or left out or embarrassed. It goes so far that she even gets mean if someone gives her a gift, she doesn't even want people to know that she feels pleasing emotions--- gratitude, joy, love. If I want to give her something and her to like it, I've learned to go to elaborate lengths to pretend I'm not giving it to her. We're about a year into mommy learning a great deal about patience, and are making some headway yes,.... but I feel like I've created this little person who is always trying said patience, and I'm really still in the learning and beginning steps of awareness process. I don't so much yell and scream anymore, but the tone in my voice can often times be just as damaging. It's like the tone just seeps out, I've spoken before I'm aware of the energy of my words. That tone my mom used so often, just as mindlessly if not more so, the one that made me feel about 2 inches tall. The tone that left me to wonder if she could still love me since she obviously despised my behavior so much. I am working to eradicate the tone but it still slips. My mother and I will never be close, I don't even hold out hope anymore. There is a numbness to our dealings with each other, a sort of relational prozac. I don't want that for me and my daughters, and I'm scared that it may be too late with DD1. How do I begin to repair what I've done? And it's not like I was/am that awful.... there is the added fact that she is so super sensitive. She truly is magickal, one of the crystal children. She really needed/needs a froo frooey, gooey, gushy, lovey dovey happy hippy granola mama.... someone with a soft voice, sweet smile, and endless patience. And while this is the mom I've surely been working on growing into, she's been with me from the start of things and has been all wrapped up in my growth process. She is at once both delicate and demanding, a high needs child that would represent a parenting challenge to the most seasoned of moms. I truly believe the only solution to the difficulties currently between her and I is reconnection. How do I begin to mend the connection, reweave the silver thread that connects her and I, mother and daughter, to one another and to the greater world? Please, if anyone has any experience/advice/info...... please share. The distance between DD1 and I feels like miles, with every parenting mistake I make only driving us faster apart. I miss my little girl, I love her with all of my heart and soul, and I'm soooo sooo, so very sorry that she had to be there for my growing up. And at the same time, so very grateful to be on the right track, some people never do make it. I feel for my own mother and all that she missed out on as I was growing up.
ne time. She is very young and you sound like a great mama - none of us is perfect and everyone of us has "growing up" to do as parents.
