For some people, parenting is a calling; they seem to glide through it like they’re walking on air. For others, parenting feels like walking through a bear-infested forest covered in honey. For me, it was the latter. I was a young, single teenage mum when I had my first and by the time I was 26, I had 3 kids. My parenting journey started with a lengthy hospital stay and every milestone was met with celebration and gratitude. It was both exhilarating and emotionally exhausting. So when my youngest turned 18 and I didn’t cry or feel sad emotion, I wondered if I was the odd one out?
I’m a realist, and if I’m honest with myself, a cynic. Me and emotions have a complex, love/hate relationship. Childhood trauma both blessed and cursed me with the ability to not react emotionally to situations. It was an act of self-preservation that became ingrained in my personality.
This part of me didn’t mesh with parenting and the emotional rollercoaster it can be. Being such a young mum meant I grew up with my kids and even though I’m their mother, our relationships are more sibling/friend-like than parent/child. It’s similar to the Gilmore Girls but more realistic. All of this affected how I relate to big events in my kids’ lives.
First Days of School
When my youngest started preschool, I didn’t cry. I didn’t have time to. She cried enough for both of us (her words). Her separation anxiety started in daycare, and I had to get everyone else in the family to take her because she wouldn’t lose it on them. It was more of a ‘don’t let her see you get emotional because that will make her cry more’ mentality.
The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
I thought primary school would be different. She was so excited to go she almost slept in her school uniform. She was awake at the crack of dawn making sandwiches to go in the lunch I had packed the night before.
She was fiercely independent despite her separation anxiety with me, and absolutely ready for school at four years old (she would turn five that May). She had also been making her sandwiches since she was three and her flavour combinations were just as eccentric as her fashion sense. Vegemite and Devon anyone?
So, we got up and I brushed her hair into the cutest little pigtails. She looked tiny in her uniform and backpack which was almost the same size as her, and we waited out the front for my mum to pick us up and take us to school.
She started kindy with her best friend, Lochie, who she’d been besties with from birth (born a day apart), and another little boy my mum looked after.
Lochie’s mum was there with tears in her eyes, my mum had some welling, and other mums were crying about their kid’s first days. But my eyes were dry.
Her excitement lasted the first week and then the meltdowns started until I taught her how to catch the bus. She was happy to go if I wasn’t the one taking her and leaving her there. I knew this anxiety wasn’t about me. It was about how her father left and her residual feelings over that. I again put on the brave face and hammed up the excitement to distract her. This continued until she started Year Four.
Not That Emotional. Most Of The Time
I say this with a straight face even though I’ll fall to pieces when I’m reading a book, watching a sad movie or TV episode, or seeing something sad and animal-related on social media like this.
I do feel an ache in my heart and a lump in my throat when my kids accomplish something (I am human, after all), but it’s more pride than anything else. The few times my kids have had to go under anaesthetic for surgery, I did well up, but only for a few minutes and only when they couldn’t see me.
But we suck it up for our kids, don’t we? We try not to let them see us become upset and model resilience. And with Beth, it worked. The less upset I got about something, the less upset she would get, and it became like second nature to me.
Social Expectations and Stigma
There’s also an element of expectation that comes with having kids. Fed to us by unrealistic social media ‘momfluencers’ and TV/movies. We’re expected to feel like we’re losing something when our kids start or finish an important moment.
There are well-intentioned platitudes and gentle warnings about ‘missing’ this or that milestone or moment. And weird looks from other mothers when I didn’t get emotional at the school gate.
It puts a lot of demands on us and makes me feel like I’m failing when I don’t act like the world is ending. And who needs that kind of pressure? I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. I cry more for animals and fictional characters than I do my real-life people.
I mean, I’m a catastrophiser, a worrier, an overthinker, and I always jump to the worst-case scenario. I should be the one crying over these things. Right?
She turned 18 and I didn’t flinch
Beth asked me, the night of her 18th birthday if I felt sad about her being my last kid to turn eighteen. I said no. And she looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“You’re not sad?” she asked. And I could see a flicker in her eyes and knew if I didn’t answer thoughtfully, this might be one of those things she’ll never let me forget. And we all know how well our kids like to remind us of the times we mess up.
I told her no. Truthfully, I’m not sad she’s turning 18. I’m excited for her. She’s got so much ahead of her and I’m excited for the possibilities of where that life can take her. I also feel like my tearing up with melancholy is taking away from her moment and putting attention on my emotions.
It’s hard to get sad about no longer having a ‘child’ in the house when her future is filled with so much promise. She plans to marry her fiancée, build a life together doing things they both love, and start a family. Her future is bright, and it makes me happy.
My mum often tells me she doesn’t know any parents like me. I’m pretty sure she means it as a compliment, and I choose to take it that way so that little self-doubt demon doesn’t take over.
All I know is my kids know I love them, even when they exasperate me like it’s their job, and they know I am proud of them. I don’t need to cry to show them that. Does that make me a bad mother? Should I feel guilty about not crying when my last baby became an adult? I don’t think so.
1 Comment
Hi Tina! I didn’t know this about you, interesting to get some background after reading so many of your articles.
I just wanted to relate a little tale that makes me giggle every time I think of it. Some Mum was lamenting in an instagram post when my friends and I were all fairly new Mums, about how guilty she felt every time she was leaving her upset daughter at daycare (I’ve never felt guilty, and I secretly think the ones who do posts like this don’t either) and another one of her friends I didn’t know had responded ‘Oh my god do you feel bad? Haha I don’t, bye bitch!’ with a waving hand emoji.
And probably quite sleep deprived etc, but ‘bye bitch’ just absolutely sent me. To this day I silently laugh if bye bitch pops in to my head.
Anyway, keep up the good work and thanks for the reads, now that work is finally so quiet for a little while here!