- cross-posted to:
- parenting@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- parenting@lemmy.world
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I truly understand both sides here. I have an autistic child and while all the love and pride in them is genuinely there and we make conscious effort to vocalize that to them regularly, life with a neurodivergent child is hard and incredibly frustrating a lot of the time. Bedtime is usually the worst, which means that by the time they go down you have reached or surpassed your limit.
One of the most frustrating things as a neurodivergent parent is that the majority of your social group will have zero understanding of what you go through on a daily basis. That means that often times the only person you can vent to is your partner.
Kids suck a lot of the time. All parents are forbidden to express their frustrations without being judged harshly. Being a parent doesn’t make you a perfect person with infinite patience and the expectation that it should needs to die.
The expectation however needs to remain “you need to be better tomorrow than you were today which should be better than yesterday” with the caveat that if you didn’t hit that you were at least trying OR it’s your goal.
There’s no excuse for giving up on being better for your kid.
I mean I think we are all trying to be better as parents than our parents were or than we were yesterday, but it’s important I think to be real about the fact that that is aspirational and we are going to make mistakes. More important than keeping high expectations I think is to own your mistakes, and let your kids see you do it.
There is a time and a place and you don’t want to undermine your own authority or that of your co parent if you have one, but showing what it means to take responsibility is just as important as trying to always do better I think.
Not in the same boat, at all, and not trying to compare situations or anything. But I’m the sole caregiver for my mom, and I wouldn’t trade my role with anyone for anything, short of a magical switch to flip that would make her well or something. But it can be frustrating, and hard, and sometimes scary and all the other things. There are days where I sit in my car and want to cry. And I have no one to talk to about it, and often feel very guilty over feeling frustrated, because I love that woman so fucking much it’s crazy.
A few days ago I put a deposit down on a wheelchair van, and talked for nearly 2 hours with a guy who does the same thing for his father. It was such a huge, unbelievable relief to talk to someone who understood. My friends don’t get it, in their minds if it’s frustrating just don’t do it, find someone else. But this guy got it. We had nothing else in common, and would definitely not be friends if both of us weren’t caregivers. Nothing else in common. But, man, we talked like we’d been friends for years, instant connection. I don’t have a partner, either, but I imagine it was something a bit like that. Someone who got it, and wasn’t judging me or my mom, and knew that the frustration wasn’t at her or with her or because of any choices she had made, but at the situation, because they knew the experience. It was pretty incredible.
I took care of one of the best friends I ever had at the end of his life, right when Covid hit and all that. He was a tough dude to handle on a good day, and I once told him in a fight (long before his illness knocked him down) that if I were catholic and could convince folks that I had performed a miracle, they’d make me a saint when I died for the patience required to be his friend. Any time he’d get angry at me he’d bring it up too haha. “Old saint angryeal the patient over here!” :p
It was tough. There were times when I thought things that I’d have to feel guilty about for weeks. I don’t anymore, because we talked and he acknowledged that he was a nightmare. He said, “I’ve ran everyone that ever loved me right out the door. I grew up hard and I guess I learned that if you always strike first no one could catch you off guard. You’re my best friend and I love you. I know you’ve wanted to kill me at times, but without you I wouldn’t have made it this far and I want you to know that I appreciate it more than I’ve appreciated anything in my life.”
There were times when I’d grit my teeth and it took everything in me to keep from losing it. Especially when he’d go to the hospital and then lie about his alcohol addiction, become delirious and demand to be released, I’d go get him, he’d regain his sanity and then cry. Finally, he decided to be honest and they medicated him. In his last days they even brought some of his favorite beer for him. He’d say, “I’ll be dead soon.” I’d remind him that he was too mean to die, the devil didn’t want him haha.
As hard as it was, I wouldn’t trade the time I got to spend with him for anything.
When I was young and I got strung out on heroin, he took care of me and kept me out of a lot of trouble. I owed him more than I could ever give.
Years before that, I took care of my ex’s father as he died from ALS and Parkinson’s. That was seriously, seriously hard to do. He couldn’t care for himself at all. He was so sad about being an inconvenience to anyone. “I’m so sorry you have to do this. I’m so so sorry.” That was the hardest part in that. I told him to think of my body as an extension of his own, but I know he never could.
He also took care of me when I was younger. I was homeless as a teenager and he took me in. He took in a lot of people. When I walked into his tiny little house to sleep, there were so many people there it was unreal. I slept on the floor in the living room with four other dudes he was looking out for. Some of them showed up to beg him for his medication while he was dying. It was insane. I hid his painkillers in my wood stove under some ash in the back. My house was broken into at least 6 different times by people looking for those pills. I hated them so much, then became an addict myself just around the corner and understood at least why they were all such monsters. Didn’t excuse them of course, but understood them.
I know I just said a whole lot of nothing. I guess I just wanted to say that I’m on the other side of twice being a caretaker. I’m sure I’ll have to do it again eventually. I’m very close with my uncle and he has a lot of money so I’m sure I’ll be fighting off parasites with him one day and dealing with all of that. Anyway, when I’m on my deathbed, regardless of the circumstances, I will die proud for having cared for the people I cared for no matter how hard it was or is in a moment. I won’t let myself sit and regret that I’m nobody, because at least twice in my life I have actually mattered and provided honest to god comfort to someone in this world that we all suffer in.
I have nothing but respect for people who do that day in and day out.
Sorry for this useless book. Y’all be good.
I’m not crying, you’re crying. Shut up.
I have a lot of… I don’t want to call it regret, but something adjacent to regret, about never having kids. I’m at the point in my life now where I realize it’s never going to happen. The last part of your message helped with that, I think. My mom’s only 64. I’m hoping that I’ll be doing this for another 30 years or more. If I had to trade one for the other, I’d rather this than kids. Still, I think I’d have been a good dad.
I’ve always been close with my mom, like, crazy close. I don’t know if I could do this for other people. As my dad gets older I’m realizing more and more than I don’t know what I’ll do if he ever requires this kind of care. We’re not close, and he is… A hard person to be close with. I wish you the best of luck and patience and everything else with your uncle. You’re a better person than I. A stronger person. I hope there’s someone like you around when I get old.
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Similar boat, but my spouse also has a chronic disability. As a result we have no social group.
When it comes to kids, you don’t want to over-praise them. Don’t call them “smart” or they’ll assume that means they have “natural ability” or whatever and get lazy, and then they fall behind and feel “dumb.” Instead of that, focus on the effort involved.
So I wouldn’t tell my kids they are “gifted artists” or “a wonderful person” because that discounts the effort they put in to get to that point. Instead, I’ll say they are a “diligent artist” or “a thoughtful person” because those are actionable; to get better at art, they need to spend more time doing art, and to become a nicer person, they need to think of others’ needs more. Be very careful that the words you use to describe a child motivate them to do better, rather than plateau.
At least that’s my philosophy, and it seems to be working. My oldest two are at the top of their respective classes and way beyond their grade level, but I never call them smart, I instead focus on their diligence. If they’re not working hard but still getting good grades (like I did as a kid), then I’ll find out why and find a way to challenge them.
Good! I do not get family gossiping immediate family
Depends how you mean “gossip”. If you have little kids, you’ll totally get the instances in Bluey, for example, where Mom and Dad recount to each other the funny shit kids say and laugh about it. It’s sort of gossip I guess, but it’s funny because of the growth you can see in your kids.
As an example, the last time my wife and I went to dinner we got a salad for my almost 5 year old daughter. It had tomatoes on it, and she told our friend she “isn’t allowed to have those” which we all cracked up about. She even LIKES tomatoes, but I guess she didn’t want them and she’s a shit liar.
Kids are funny. You gotta share the joy when you can, because parenting is hard work yo.
very wholesome, but I’ll stick to white noise generators instead.
This is such a great idea. I love this.
I found a happy cry post on the Internet today. Thanks
Your parents talked about you.jpg??
Fuck yes my dude.
