Parenting

I hope that part of being a good parent is knowing that I need to step away and that POB (partner of blogger) needs to do the heavy-lifting.

My son is a fabulous kid and still a typical child.  He views the world only through his needs and in a disturbing development has been given to tantrums.  We thought we had skated by that particularly taxing aspect of childhood emotional growth but, no, I was maybe too smug too quickly and the karma boomerang provides a painful kick in the head.  (Come on, with all the issues we’ve had, the boomerang hurt too much for my little display of self-satisfaction.)

Our son, SOPOBLO (son of partner of blogger/blogger), pushed everyone of my buttons this weekend.   He usually displays appropriate manners and sensitivity to those around him but recently he has been harder to handle and intentionally testing every limit while simultaneously demanding every “reward”.  I can tell from the side glances that he is testing our (or maybe just my) reactions.  He also wants to exclude me from things as punishment for working longer hours, etc., even though I have less to show for those hours.

I feel my father’s anger at the sense of entitlement and my inner hurt at being excluded.  I remember all the books I read about guiding a child through these periods.  I cannot reconcile the books with my emotions.  I am ready to move out of the city of conspicuous consumption and raise SOPOBLO in a less affluent environment where POB and I have 9-6 jobs.

Maybe he is touching a nerve because the economic downturn has smacked us a bit and I feel the hurt pride of earning less and needing to save more.  But we were never so cavalier about money and toys and the rest.  We are careful about those things.  But, he leads a pretty privileged life, let’s be honest.

I love SOPOBLO so much but I was an emotionally distant parent Sunday.  It was the best I could do.  POB did the heavy lifting for the day.  That is a luxury — having another parent to take the lead.  I don’t know how single parents do it.  I am grateful every day for POB.