Vent: I just set myself up for an ambush

[laohaire]

When will I learn????????????????????

Lately, I've been pretty impatient with DD. Not in the context of homeschooling, just overall. She is really intense and demanding. A pain in the patootie, if you ask me.

So I was stupid and in a moment of weakness shared with my mother that I've been losing my patience with her lately, and I even asked if she had any advice for me. She had a few things to say that were not news to me yet helped me kind of refocus on my goals. She reinforced that patience is very important. That was yesterday, and it was a nice little pep talk for me - I've been trying harder since then.

But today, just now in fact, she calls me up and apparently she'd "lain awake all night" thinking about our talk. And she was thinking that DD was demanding because she is extroverted and DH and I are introverted. And that we are not providing her with enough of what she needs. And that she of course couldn't say how she could get more social interaction, that was of course up to us, but more activities and friends and school outside the home were her thoughts.

So there I was listening to her bullcrap on the phone, looking like a mad, wet cat (just really quiet and starting to slouch and looking pretty mean). Finally I just said something about how she misunderstood, that when i said she was demanding, I meant that she wanted us to FETCH her stuff. Or COOK her something. "Oh."

Then she wanted to talk to DD for a minute, and then got off the phone.

When will I ever learn not to trust my mother with ANYTHING, and not to open up to her??? I'm an idiot. I will make a conscious decision and then I go and do something dumb like this. How dumb is ASKING for advice?

I just feel blindsided and betrayed. Again. Which I guess makes it not a blindsiding but I'm just an incurable idiot.

[laohaire]

Sorry for venting here, but I can't share with DH or he will just blow up and make me feel 100 times worse.

[chaoticzenmom]

I've been there with my MIL.  If I admit that anything in my life is less than perfect, she thinks it's an open invitation for criticism.  It's a learning process for sure.  Maybe she was worried that she didn't give you the advice she thought you needed and wanted to correct that.  Try not to hold it against her or stress too much about it. 

[sapphire_chan]

"More social time sounds lovely. Where were you thinking of taking her?" =D

Was my first thought when I got to the part where your mom told you your dd should get more social time.

[heatherdeg]

I just wrote a post about how I think you're too angry to see the good parts of this; and I deleted it because you're venting and need a place to empathize instead of... well... try to make you not be upset when you already told us "hey I need to vent".    Sorry!

But the whole "hand your kid off to someone else" thing gets old.  When did we get like this?  Don't get me wrong--I totally understand when there are times where things get so heated that you need to set something down and walk away TEMPORARILY (and that may even be a few days in serious situations) but I feel like I can't complain about ANYthing regarding my son because the immediate reaction is akin to "you don't need to deal with that--send him to school" or "it would be different if he were in school".  REALLY?!?!?  You know this HOW?!?!?

[earthmama369]

I like the way you think!
 

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan 

"More social time sounds lovely. Where were you thinking of taking her?" =D

Was my first thought when I got to the part where your mom told you your dd should get more social time.

[treegardner]

 

 

[SundayCrepes]

I read your post and it didn't sound as awful to me as it did to you.

Take out the part about school outside the home and this is what I heard, "she was thinking that DD was demanding because she is extroverted and DH and I are introverted. And that we are not providing her with enough of what she needs. And that she of course couldn't say how she could get more social interaction, that was of course up to us, but more activities and friends were her thoughts."

Could she be right? Setting up a social group has been the hardest part of our journey so far. Both my husband and I are introverts. I have made more friends and joined more groups since my son was born to try and establish friends for my kids than I have ever joined before. I am on the constant search for friends for them and it is so not me. The worst part is every time my son finds a good friend, they move away or go to school (which is why I stopped putting to much effort into schooled kids.) Then I have to start the process all over. We are finally at a point where he has several good friends, but I always worry how easily people can move away and such.

I know when my kids are bored they get whining and demanding. Getting them out of the house or having friends come over is such a relief. Having two is good sometimes as they play well together, but sometimes it is not enough, they need more than what we have at home.

Does your daughter have a lot of friends? Do you go to many activities? If not, I'd highly recommend it.

I'm really lucky because my brother homeschools his kids that are older than mine and my mom has seen how well they have done so she is totally supportive of our homeschooling. (Actually, she is even wistful that it is inappropriate for my younger brother to homeschool and wishes it were different.) My MIL on the other hand (a retired kindergarten teacher)  was very against us homeschooling. I decided to look at it from her perspective. She doesn't have a clue about homeschooling. She told us about a homeschooling family she knew years ago. She went and inspected the classroom for that mother to make sure it was appropriate. We're unschoolers. I laughed so hard about that story (though she doesn't know we're unschooling.) Anyway, from her perspective we are putting her grandkids at risk. So, I decided we needed to address that. Not get her to believe in what we were doing, but to address her concerns.

My husband and I both read http://www.amazon.com/Homeschooling-Rediscovered-Socialization-Education-Family/dp/1430308257/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1304484784&sr=8-1 Then we gave her a copy. She was able to wish us well on our homeschooling journey after she read it. I don't know if she buys into the homeschooling thing, but at least we validated her concerns and I tried to put them to rest.

[4evermom]

Actually, my extroverted ds frequently asks me for food or to find him a specific lego or something because he does have such a high need for interaction, or he wants company.  So your mom might not have been totally out in left field.  But it's frustrating none the less and school isn't the answer. 

[sapphire_chan]

The last thing a kid who isn't getting enough chances to talk needs is to go to school. (http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1310991/son-talks-too-much-in-class-dh-will-start-spanking-for-this/40#post_16425729 for example)

[onatightrope]

FWIW, my extroverted kid gets anxious, frustrated, irritable, and demanding if she isn't getting enough social time.  Classes outside the home have helped, because she gets to go hang out with kids and be social (I look for classes that allow that, not all of them do) and I don't have to be social with her, so I get the downtime I need.

I don't mean to pile on, and your mom may be totally wrong, but what I do when we get to a place where I'm struggling with having enough patience for my kids is to try to figure out what is out of balance in our home, and sometimes that can be easier for someone on the outside to see.  

[APToddlerMama]

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan 

The last thing a kid who isn't getting enough chances to talk needs is to go to school. (http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1310991/son-talks-too-much-in-class-dh-will-start-spanking-for-this/40#post_16425729 for example)

We are a family of extroverts and I would have personally gone crazy as a kid without school.  Being a SAHM nearly drove me insane until I built up a solid group of SAHM friends.  Not a day typically goes by that we don't have a playdate, and even that is not enough for me. I go out to dinner or meet up for a drink with other girlfriends several times a month and still I go a bit insane being a SAHM because of the lack of interaction.  I really like the idea of homeschooling for a lot of reasons, but I know I won't be able to bring myself to do it because a) I am dying to eventually get back to work where I have even more interaction than I do now and b) I know DS would go bonkers because he goes bonkers if it is just me and him for a day or two.  I am not trying to be controversial or argue.  I just want to point out that some of us have a greater need for human interaction.  It isn't necessarily about "talking" so much as it is about interacting with others. 

OP--Hugs.  My mom can be a huge pain and I always want to kick myself when I make the mistake of thinking for a second that I can open up to her.  It always comes back to haunt me.  I hope that once things settle down you can re-evaluate and decide if maybe your kiddo could use just a little more social interaction. 

[Greenmama2]

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan 

The last thing a kid who isn't getting enough chances to talk needs is to go to school. (http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1310991/son-talks-too-much-in-class-dh-will-start-spanking-for-this/40#post_16425729 for example)

Too true! Sorry your mom took the ball and ran the wrong way OP. Like other PPs I have a child who demands stuff/that we do stuff for her when she isn't getting enough stimulation.

[elisheva]

OP - having to hold your cards close even when dealing with your mom is a tough lesson to swallow. I finally got there a few years ago. Now she accuses me of never telling her anything yet every.single.time I confide in her something that's important to me/my family, it blows up. Our latest is that I mentioned we were thinking of possibly naming new baby (who may or may not be a girl) after my grandma who died last month. We've always been circumspect about names and really only make the final decision when the baby is a few days old. Next thing I know, she has something in the memorial service program about how the new baby will be named Elizabeth...luckily I saw an advance copy and insisted (in a nice way) that she take it out. Now she's mad at me. 

She also let me know several times that she thought having company over Passover was too much for me. When she messaged several times to see how I was doing and I admitted to being tired, she messaged my DH with a rant. He couldn't think of anything nice to say back so he wisely didn't respond. Now she's mad at him, too. I'll enjoy the silence for as long as it lasts, I guess.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by APToddlerMama 

We are a family of extroverts and I would have personally gone crazy as a kid without school.  Being a SAHM nearly drove me insane until I built up a solid group of SAHM friends.  Not a day typically goes by that we don't have a playdate, and even that is not enough for me. I go out to dinner or meet up for a drink with other girlfriends several times a month and still I go a bit insane being a SAHM because of the lack of interaction.  I really like the idea of homeschooling for a lot of reasons, but I know I won't be able to bring myself to do it because a) I am dying to eventually get back to work where I have even more interaction than I do now and b) I know DS would go bonkers because he goes bonkers if it is just me and him for a day or two.  I am not trying to be controversial or argue.  I just want to point out that some of us have a greater need for human interaction.  It isn't necessarily about "talking" so much as it is about interacting with others. 

True, in retrospect most of the troubles that particular child has encountered are due to the teacher's lack, but it still serves as one example of why going to school isn't a panacea for social time.

[elanorh]

Last week, I had a DAY with dd1.  She was just dragging her feet .... I couldn't ask her to do her math problems and come check on them later, she would get up and do something else the minute I turned my back to wash dishes or whatever.  I finally ended up sitting down next to her the whole time she did the worksheets, during which she complained incessantly about how she dislikes story problems, and doesn't want to do them, and couldn't we just do regular equations, etc. etc.  A math lesson which should have taken us 30 minutes to do, ended up taking 3 hours. 

I found myself thinking, "GAH!  If she was in a brick-and-mortar school, I'd have walked her to school this morning, come home, and I'd have been able to get all my to-do's done today with no issues!" (I had a batch of no-pectin strawberry jam to make, and spring-cleaning of her bedroom, on top of the regular stuff I needed to do that day; it meant I went to bed at about 3am, because the strawberries and our schedule couldn't wait for me to make the jam some other day ). 

BUT, as I stood there late at night still fuming about how the day had gone, stirring my strawberry jam, I remembered - if she were in school, she would have come home that afternoon having behaved that way at school all day.  I'd probably have had a note from her teacher, and extra homework for her 1st grade self, and I probably would have been blindsided by that sort of behavior for hours that night while I was trying to complete these extra projects, anyway. 

I think homeschooling is a lot like breastfeeding.  People who are uncomfortable with it, will often almost immediately cite it (homeschooling or breastfeeding) as the thing that you should change, if you vent or ask advice about something that's challenging or frustrating you as a parent.  And often the connections between the challenge, and their rationale for ending homeschooling, are quite tenuous.  Not unlike the ILs who told me I should wean with dd1's allergies - because, apparently, they hadn't considered the fact that formula is based on either soy or dairy. 

All that said -- dd1 is an extrovert, and dh and I are both introverts.  It's been a challenge for us and especially for me to coordinate social opportunities for dd1.  And I do see a difference in her behavior when she hasn't been out and about with friends as much.  Usually *I* feel more stable, settled, productive --- she is the opposite. 

The suggestion that public school will provide those social opportunities, though - that's really off-base.  I don't think many people making those suggestions know what school is like anymore for kids.  Fewer recesses, K is like first grade in terms of the academics covered; we have a friend whose school forbids talking during lunch hour.  I don't think that much socializing goes on at school (not without getting in trouble) anymore.  Purely anecdotally, I think my girls have more pure play and interaction time with their friends than their public and privately schooled friends - just with art class, play dates, swim lessons, library time.... My aunt is really very concerned about homeschooling and thinks that dd1 is really missing out - she doesn't realize that in the 50 years since she was in grade school, things have changed a LOT. 

It's a bummer to deal with (this blame of homeschooling for X Y Z random issue) - I seldom talk about anything that the girls are doing that might be traced back to "you should put them in school" with my conversations with family/friends who aren't as supportive of homeschooling.  I have friends that get it, and there's this board, and it's easier to talk about those things here (especially if they do in fact involve homeschooling -like last year, when dd1 was really struggling with phonics) - than to bring them up with someone whose default is too often, "Well, my neighbor is a school teacher, and she said that the homeschool kid who was added to her class last year....."