On Parenting

Please excuse the jumbled thoughts in this post. It came about after an incident earlier tonight, and I'm not even going to try and make my thoughts orderly, because I'm still on edge. I won't bring up the nature of the incident, but it caused me to rant and rave like a madwoman at my child for some small infraction he had committed. Seriously. I could have handled it better. I could have told him why it was wrong. Nope. Full on bitch out freak fest went on. I'm sure he went to bed feeling like shit. I know I feel awful as fuck now.

I'm not looking for head pats with this post. I'm not looking for, "But he's such a good kid! You raised him well!" If I'm such a good parent, why did I yell about stupid shit? Why did I make him feel like he was the most awful person on earth?

The truth is, I'm not a good parent. My kid isn't good because I raised him right. He's good because I think he wants to please me and feel closer to me. If I were an actual decent parent, then he might be different, maybe worse, maybe better. I don't know.

This brings me to another thought. My son loves a lot of things that I love. He acts almost like a mini-me. Does he love these things out of genuine interest? Or is it another way to get closer to me? Does he act that way because that's just his personality, or is it because he thinks that is the only way he'll get my approval?

Some days I feel like I'm completely distant from my son. I want to show interest in what he does. I want to be a fucking award winning June Cleaver type mother. But I can't. I can't bring myself to do it. When he talks, I start losing focus. When he tries to show me something, I'm halfheartedly involved. If he keeps pressing me for attention, I get short with him. If he wants some of my time, I act like it kills me. Why do I do this? Why can't I be better?

We've had issues before with my responses. That was a bad time and I felt completely terrible for a good long while. But it seems that I have forgotten how bad things were and what nearly happened as a result of me being so distant and uncaring.

I guess this whole post is making me sound completely fucking unhinged and like an absolute unfit parent. I probably am. I don't know how my son will be when he's older. I don't know if he'll look back at his childhood and think, "Wow. My mom fucking sucked and I want nothing more to do with the bitch." Because as shitty a parent as I am, as distant as I can be, I love the SHIT out of my son. I would fucking walk over fire for him. I'd beat the ass of anyone that would hurt him. I'd beat MY ass right now if it were possible. Because I hurt him tonight. I know I did.

I can't take back the words I said. I can't make those right. They will be stamped on his mind forever. What I can do is apologize tomorrow and show him this and remind him that no matter how fucking nuts I am, he is my heart. He's the reason I'm still even going on, the reason I did not slit my wrists that one night in 2008, the reason I went for help the first time.

Maybe it's time to ask for help again and not just blog about how fucking ridiculous I can be.