High Maintenance Mom

I was at Whole Foods on Monday with both boys trying to get a medium size list of food. It was a reasonable trip with only a few trying moments such as N operating the automatic peanut grinder and both kids blocking the aisles. Another shopper, who was male, told me I was a great mom so I was trying even harder to be that person I want to be. Of course, the euphoria started to decline as the experience continued and by the time we got into the checkout line, we were all ready to go. N asked if he could stand up in the kid's cart he was pushing and I said no. A minute later I looked over, noticed he was standing up, and said in a nonconfrontational way, "N, it's not safe to stand in the cart. You asked if you could and I said no." I was amazed he asked in the first place but since he did, I thought I was handling things pretty well and he was getting out of the cart. It was at this point that the checkout clerk said, "looks like someone is going to get a spanking when they get home..."

I glared at the clerk and wished he would move faster. After a minute or two of silence he said, "don't you believe in spanking?" I replied no and saw several lines of people watching me. N piped up with, "what's spanking?" I explained that the checkout clerk thought his behavior was so bad that I should hit him for it.

Every parenting book I have talks about how awful it is to yell at kids. I don't own one book that says anything positive about spanking but I also feel the eyes of another generation judging me for my parenting and I feel the "my kids were never that bad" mutters. That said, the checkout clerk was younger than me. I was feeling proud for surviving a shopping trip that I would not have taken both boys on if my husband hadn't been sick. I thought about my single parent friends and how much more patient they must be. I thought about my lack of sleep and how it makes me upset by the little things. And for the first time, I started to question why I was spending so much money at Whole Foods (and paying for the peanut butter N spilled). Being a parent has meant reliving the feelings of childhood. Often they include awe, wonder, and a sense of pride, but Monday I got to relive embarrassment and it wasn't much fun.

Luckily, I'm old enough to know the feelings don't last long and I have my own ways of dealing with them. As I told the boys, when I'm really upset I like to lie on the couch and read. So that's what we did. And it felt much better.