You don’t like your child? Maybe even hate him?
He just succeeded in pushing ALL your buttons.
She made choices that seem purposely meant to make you explode!
If they say ONE MORE WORD you are going to scream? Likely it’s going to be a snide remark or what our parents called ”backtalk” perfectly poised to set you off.
Welcome to my world of parenting! And it’s spring break here so these thoughts are roiling through my head.
Is hate too strong a word to use right now?
I was recently talking with a friend and she said that a particular child of hers was so hard to love. Sometimes she even hated him. She felt bad about it and was sure she must be the only mother who felt this way. Her mother never mentioned feeling this way.
My response?
After I had thought about it several days, berating myself for not responding better at the time.
Do you love your husband ALL the time? Aren’t there times when you just want to wring his handsome neck? Times when sheer loathing happens because you just can’t?!!
(If the answer is no, you must have scored Jesus for a husband.)
What about your mother, or your favorite sister? Same?
Same.
Why should our relationships with our children be any different?
This is the nature of relationships. What brings us back and calms us down is that we love them. And they love us. We work through the eye rolls, the button-pushing, the suspensions (!!!!), ALL the CRAP.
Because they deal with the same thing from us and still love us.
