The Burden of Parenting

I’ve been in a funk lately.

• Back pain and difficulty breathing landed me in the ER last week.
• My sons have been home sick.
• Our ill-behaved dog has been a pest, and not in an endearing sort of way.
• The North Carolina general assembly has given us all coach class tickets on the Crazy Train.

Look, my life is easy, all things considered. Sometimes we all just need to hit the reset button and carry on. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately, though I told myself (and those around me) that I could handle it all. It turns out I can’t. At least not all the time. I’ll be honest, sometimes parenting is a burden. There, I said it. My ugly confession. Going this alone is plain hard on me and Mac Daddy. We do what we can and then some. It is draining to be the sole care givers for these two little boys, though yes, we share the joys and milestones too. That’s not my point today. What I’m saying is that if it really “takes a village,” we are exhausted being are our sons’ village. We fight extra hard to protect them and nurture them because we are all they have. There are plenty of relatives who love them, but none who care for them. Caring for and caring about are wholly different. It’s emotionally and physically demanding to be the only ones who are here for our boys. Oh, we love those children fiercely. Please don’t misunderstand my words. I tell myself we will grow into a tight-knit family because of this closeness now.

We will be a sappy Lifetime TV movie one day, the kind of tale where brothers come home with their wives and children and sit around a giant kitchen table gabbing and eating home baked goodies while butterflies dance among the yellow lantana in the pristine back yard. OK, scratch the pristine yard. That’s never going to happen. The home baked goodies will be there for sure, but add to the scenario the grown sons asking their mom (that’s me) to make their childhood favorite beef bourguignon and kale and brussels sprouts salad. I weave these daydreams in my head as old school filmstrips when I need to take a moment in the heat of the moment. Instead of counting to ten, I imagine a scene from our Lifetime movie and wait for the beep before turning to the next image. As daily life gets in the way of living (a paradox more ubiquitous than the quest for “balance”), I think about the foundation we are giving to Bird and Deal. Admittedly, things don’t always go as planned. I lose my shit. I say things I regret. I act more like a child than a parent. It’s all rather unbecoming.

Because parenting is hard.

I realize I sound whiny. I don’t mean to complain. I’m simply stating that being one of two people on this planet that our sons can count on is trying. Our mistakes are exponentially compounded since our mode of parenting is all they know. Our nerves fray easily and often as this pressure weighs on us. We are the Atlas of parenting, shouldering the life of these two boys. Of course we want, and need, to do right by them. We owe them our everything, our best. We owe them because we are all they have.