Craphead (aka Mommy)

I remember taking a class in graduate school, a seminar or some small class where we all sat around a table. I cannot remember what the class was for sure, but it seems like it was for the teaching assistants and it was a one credit class about how to teach. One assignment we had was to come up with a lesson plan for a class we might teach someday. We had to teach the class to our classmates. I was really into studying cyberculture at the time and my class was Cyberculture 101 or some such thing. I had this lesson plan and outline and it was really good. I think everyone enjoyed it, but I remember getting a comment that it seemed unorganized. It seemed like I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I recall getting that comment on some teacher evaluations, also. It’s interesting, because I usually am quite organized. My notes are organized. My thoughts are usually fairly well organized, but I do sometimes go on tangents because everything is related and I might think of different examples to use, depending on what happened recently. Anyway, the point is that despite knowing what I was doing, knowing what I was talking about, and having good, well-organized notes, I still appeared to be flying by the seat of my pants.  

Last week when my brother-in-law was visiting, I realized that my parenting looks like this to many people. Some people have figured out that I do actually know what I am doing. I think my mom gets it, but it took her a while. And at first I think she spent a lot of time biting her tongue. I know that my mother-in-law gets it because her view on children is very similar to mine. That is, we both believe that children are people. Most importantly, I think it took my husband a while to figure out what I was doing. It took a lot of conversations, and some yelling and fighting, for us to be on the same page. We don’t always do things the same way, but we at least have the same basic goals and values. I can’t say that I always know what I am doing (what mother does?), but I am very thoughtful about parenting, about my children’s feelings and their wants and needs. I read, I talk to people, I observe other parents and I mull it all over and figure out how things will work for us. I know my kids and I know what works for us and what doesn’t.

I know that my parenting requires a lot of thought, a lot of creativity, and a lot of flexibility. It doesn’t look the same from one minute to the next or from one child to the other. It looks mainstream only when I am needing to take care of myself or needing time to myself or just completely frustrated. When I’m connected and present, it looks like I’m a big kid myself. So it looks different because I need to be a different kind of parent depending on the circumstances. To others, I think it looks like I have no idea what I’m doing. But I do, dammit! How can I change this appearance? Or should I not worry about it?