This morning I generously performed a small community service for all the other mothers and fathers at our daughters’ daycare. I made them feel virtuous, capable and adept simply by virtue of them not being me. Because today I was the parent no one wants to be. The one carrying in a screaming 2-year old in her pyjamas.
The reason? I cruelly and callously denied her a longed-for listen of “Let It Go” on my iPad. Why? Because I am totally unreasonable and expected her to finish her breakfast and let me get her dressed before she could double down with a little Disney. These conditions were communicated very clearly but they were completely unreasonable to her, so she responded as two year olds are wont to. Completely unreasonably. She kicked, she screamed and she made it clear to me and her almost-five year old sister that she was past the point of no return.
After giving her a final opportunity to get dressed and finish her breakfast, she resisted so I persisted in carrying out the consequences. Boundaries, consistency and all that. I scooped her up, grabbed my bag, picked up her bag and thanked my lucky stars that her big sister was dutifully carrying her own bag, opening the doors and helping to get us out the door.
Fortunately for us, though less fortunately for all of our neighbours, the girls’ daycare is on our street so I wasn’t required to strap anyone into a car seat. I simply herded my chaotic circus down the street and across the road. In ordinary circumstances our girls are happy to arrive at day-care and, obviously enough, are usually wearing clothes not pjs, so the teachers were immediately alert to the fact this wasn’t an ordinary day.
They offered kind but firm words to a very unimpressed two year old. They said that listening to what mum and dad ask you to do is very important. That getting dressed is very important. That as egregious as it is to miss out on Let It Go, it’s a reasonable consequence if you don’t do your jobs like help getting dressed.
I thought, not for the first time, how skilful early childhood educators and carers are at communicating with little people. I thought how lucky we are that our girls go to a centre like this: not just because of the way it benefits them but in the way it benefits us. They teach us as well as they teach our girls.
On the outside in the midst of this morning’s debacle I did the only thing I could: I held it together. Inside was a different story though. Inside I was willing the crying to stop, I was tempting myself to give in, I was doubting my parenting ability and questioning every decision I have, will or might ever make as a parent. And that’s the bit where I have to stop myself.
As a general rule I don’t indulge in guilt about working. It is a conscious decision I make because aside from the fact the guilt won’t achieve anything, I recognise that investing in my own fulfilment and financial independence is the best thing I can do for my family.
During a pressure test like this morning that rational thinking goes out the window. This morning is the time I convince myself that my working is the reason we confront tantrums. That if I didn’t work there would never be any battles. That if I didn’t work our children would always behave and our lives would free from stress. Away from the chaos I recognise how flawed those theories are.
I also recognise how gendered they are. My husband and I have had various reiterations of this conversation many times in the past couple of years: when the wheels feel like they’re coming off at home or we’re struggling with one of the kids, I immediately question my work in a way he doesn’t and in a way I don’t question his.
He makes the same point repeatedly: when things are difficult at home, when a certain member of the household is keeping us on our toes for example, why make things more complicated for myself by questioning something that I know works for us? Why not just focus on a strategy for survival and skip blaming myself?
It’s a tremendously good point that, in times of stress, I find difficult to put into practice. Even inside my own mind, which I like to believe is informed and open in this realm, certain expectations are obviously engrained. Some of those – like the fact that tantrums are somehow my sole remit – require challenging.
The fact is, whether you work a lot or not at all, toddlers will have tantrums: it’s in the job description. On weekdays, on weekends, if they are denied something they desperately want, firecrackers will ensue. The great irony of this morning’s catastrophe: I need to let it go.
Am I the only one? Have you ever taken a toddler to day-care in her pyjamas?