The Terrible Life She Leads

Being a parent is tough.  Tougher than most would ever dream it up to be. 

We anticipate the arrival of each new addition to the family with high hopes of a happily ever after.  And we get it… just not the way we planned it.

I love my children dearly and couldn’t imagine my life without a single one of them.  We have good times and we have hard times.

We are not what you might call ‘well off’ and we aren’t able to provide the kids with everything we’d like to.  They don’t get to go to restaurants or movies (or the like) as often as many of their friends or cousins but we do the best we can with what we’ve got.  But for some it just doesn’t seem good enough.

I’ve got one child that is just grateful for what we have and glad that we love her.  She never asks for much.  Another that whines about not getting some kind of treat or prize every time that we go to the store (it must mean that we don’t love her).  And a third daughter that thinks that if we don’t let her do whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, we just don’t love her. 

She is by far the most dramatic of the three.  She’s also the the one that knows how to push my buttons, pull the emotional drama card, play it on me, make me feel like a terrible mother, and make me cry.  It’s a gift!

We go the rounds every once in a while and today was one of those ‘whiles’. 

It was tough to hear, “I hate my life!”  over and over again, along with other fun statements.  She was upset that I had grounded her for the day after asking her several times to help with chores.  She and another of the girls chose NOT to help, hence the grounding for BOTH of them.

I tried to explain that she really lives a great life. 

It was no use.  She had a glazed look in her eyes.  I know it wasn’t her talking yelling at me.  I remained calm throughout the entire altercation and tried to help her realize her foolishness.  I suggested that she go and say a prayer but she wasn’t convinced.  She stormed off in a huff… and I cried. 

Only a few short minutes later she came back upstairs, hugged me, and apologized.  So glad we could resolve the issue.  She even said that she didn’t mean any of what was said.  Phew!  There were quite a few hurtful statements thrown in there.

Just keeping it real.  Sometimes bloggers only talk about the happy times.  My favorites are the ones that document the ‘real’ stuff too.