Yeah…..me too.
One any given day, I may have more than one. But I don’t mean kids who are being difficult or are going through a difficult time or phase. I mean….a difficult kid.
Let’s be honest, some kids are just plain harder to raise than others.
The whole reason I wanted to start this blog was to talk about the hard ones. But then I started to worry…. can I say “difficult”? Hard? Challenging? Or do I need to be more correct, positive, friendly about it? Should I say neurodiverse? Or different?
And then I froze for a bit and almost wrote nothing. I don’t want to be fake, I want to be down and dirty, raw and real. Because doing this momma thing is hard, but throw in a difficult kid and it becomes SO MUCH HARDER.
And a difficult kid among many???
The challenges are endless.
Many of these “difficult” kids will wind up with a diagnosis….or several.
And sometimes….so will the mommas.
And this is what I want to talk about. Mommas of difficult kids, first off, you ARE NOT ALONE.
But I bet you feel alone.
Parenting a challenging child can make your world very small.
And there are a lot of reasons for this. I’m not sure if I isolated myself or if others retreated or if I just was so bogged down in keeping this child alive, the children around him safe and myself somewhat functioning that my friends and family relationships just diminished. It was probably a combination of these things.
I could not trust my ability to go out and keep everyone safe….so I stopped going out.
I could not trust my child’s behavior, or how the other kids would react…so I stopped going out.
All my time and attention was required to manage this one child so…..there became no energy to go out.
And when we did….and I would try for a few minutes to connect and chat with other mommas…. well, a few things would happen. I’d lose the damn child! My distracted attention and HE WOULD BE GONE! Or doing something unsafe, or creating a mess, destroying something.
And oh, the other mommas….well, often they were lovely. They would help me round up the one and keep an eye on the others. And try to commiserate. But they couldn’t, they just really….couldn’t. They would try to offer advice….they wanted to be helpful. They tried.
But I had heard it all before, was doing all of it that I could and….well, he was still just difficult.
I had one very good friend and we were chatting on the phone and I shared with her something about that child. And she was so honest, “Friend, I have no idea what to say, but you know that’s not normal right”? Well, um….hahahaha…It’s my normal. And luckily, she is an amazing friend who walked with me through it all….but the truth is many many conversations and friends ended there.
Because often, it would kinda be followed by….hints that it must be your parenting. You are not doing enough or the wrongs things. Suggested nicely, of course, with the whole “Have you tried this…or that…Have you read this book, seen this doctor, tried this medication….?”
“I would do this this if he was my kid!” “I would never allow that if he was my kid!”
What are you suppose to say? So I stopped saying anything.
And the mommas of 1 or 2 easy kids would not “want to bother” me….since I was so busy….or had it so much worse. They felt like they couldn’t complain about regular parenting things when I was around. I tried not to make them feel bad for their “lesser” parenting problems. I told them my tired does not take away from their tired. But they knew their “tireds” didn’t compare….so we drifted apart. And that’s ok. They needed their momma tribe for the season they were in and I needed to learn lots of lessons and find my own momma tribe. A tribe of “many mommas.” A tribe of battled tested bad ass mommas out there who were gifted a hard one….or two.
And today, I do believe it’s a gift. Who wants a boring old easy child anyway? Ok….I do not always feel that way but that one child has taught me more about so many things….He has brought me to my knees and I had to learn about God and trusting Him on a whole new level. We have together learned about navigating schools, and doctors….countless doctors….advocating for him and for myself. He has tested my mental health and my marriage and I really had to learn about what self care and spouse care looks like on a battlefield.
All these hard lessons have brought us all great joy. And that is MY WHOLE WHY for starting this blog! I can not bear to let these lessons go to waste. And us mommas of the hard ones – we have to stick together.
Let’s be part of each others’ tribes. Let’s not walk this road alone.