Parenting Is Hard - Tumblr Posts

Okay I wanna make something clear right here and now kiddo:

✨You are not responsible for your parents.✨

If they fight, have problems, can't get along, disagree, play mind games, manipulate each other, or are even just passive aggressive or don't communicate well, whatever it is is not your fault. Don't feel like you have to help or fix them, especially not at the cost of your own mental health and well-being. Don't feel like you have to be there for them to vent at or dump their problems on, especially if they're complaints about each other. You are NOT to blame for their complications.

This goes for anybody in your life of course, but dealing with the need to support the people who are meant to be your support system is something I see all too often.

You were NOT brought into this world to be miserable on other people's behalf. You cannot fix people, they have to work on themselves.

Especially if those people are your parents.

This resonated with me so hard. Parenting is hard. I've got ADHD and depression. I love my kids fiercely. Sometimes I don't do well, but I do my best. We're all human. Humans make mistakes. And the best thing I can do for my human children is to make mistakes, own them, and show them how to handle mistakes. How to say I'm sorry and follow through. How to ask "what can I do to make this better? "

Thank you for writing this. I'm glad you enjoyed your day off! I hope you get another one soon! You're doing great!

I had a day off yesterday.

And I can already practically hear the assumptions that such a statement is prompting the reader to make. Those assumptions are wrong. I don't mean I didn't work. I did, for about 8 hours. That's not at all what I mean.

I mean my wife took the kids out at 9:30, spent the night with her mom, isn't back yet the next morning.

There are things I NEED people on this website to understand about parenting. And I've talked about it before, and I'll talk about it again, because honestly the way that Tumblr as a cohort talks about parents makes me sick. Multiple polls have shown that only about 2% of people on here are parents. We're a huge minority, and we're constantly talked over, ignored, or accused of being bad parents (like, personally, I have had people reply to my comments or come on to my posts and tell me I shouldn't have my kids). In my case, being a parent means I'm almost 41, I'm married to @ramblingandpie, and our children are inching up on being 8 and 6 years old.

My entire day, and therefore my entire life, revolves around them. I'm up most mornings at 5 AM, because that's the earliest they're "allowed" to wake up, and so my brain just defaults to being awake around then - better to wake up before them, at least then I get a few minutes in the morning. Between 5 and 7, I sit with them, do my social media, work on side blogs, study Chinese. Then it's helping them get ready for school, then my wife or I or both get them on the bus, and then I work until the last possible minute, which is either when I need to go pick them up for an after school activity or when I need to go down and meet them off the bus. My afternoons are after school activities, chores such as washing the dishes and cleaning up toys, talking with them, working with them, playing with them. Their bedtime starts at 7:40, and my son gets scared if I leave before he falls asleep so I sit with him until about 8:15. As soon as he's asleep, I go fall on my face, sleep as best I can, then wake up and do it again. Overnight, it's hard to sleep deeply, because about once a week someone will wake up in the middle of the night and need help. That could be as minimal as a hug or as complex as having to completely change the bedding on a bunk bed at 2 AM while also comforting a child who is afraid they'll be in trouble, or afraid they're sick, or afraid of their nightmare, or, or, or. Further, if a child is awake, there is always noise. I usually study Chinese with two or more competing sources of noise. I read the same way. My life is loud, and active, and consists of constant interruptions.

I adore my family, and I love my children, but this is terrible for me.

I do all of this as an neurodivergent introvert. My clinical depression is at least medicated, mostly because post-partum depression after I gave birth the first time nearly drove me to suicidal in under a week (we were expecting this and were prepared, fortunately, getting help was as simple as a phone call). The constant noise and interruptions and forced socialibility are about the worst combination of home-life I could be subjected to. I spend far too many early mornings just breathing deeply and gearing myself up to be subjected to the wall of Loud, Boisterous, Needing-My-Attention that is every minute when anyone else in the house is awake.

So what did my day off look like?

I helped get the kids ready to go and did some morning chores. I'd been up at 4:30 AM so I also had already social media'd and studied. Then, while my wife finished the preparations, I started work, and I worked from about 8 am to about 4 pm, straight. I didn't get hungry so didn't bother stopping for lunch. No one interrupted me, no one asked me to look at anything they'd built, no one broke my concentration, no sounds could be heard except those I'd chosen myself.

I'd been out the day before at a local shopping street and listened closely to the things the kids said they wanted, so at 4 I grabbed a couple orders I needed to ship for work and drove to our local downtown, dropped the orders in a post box, then went back to the shops and did some Christmas shopping in the 45 minutes or so before everything closed. I think I'm basically done with what we'll get them - other bigger things will be left to grand parents - so that's a load off, I literally had a stress dream earlier this week about it being 12/24 and having forgotten to do the shopping and having to go to (oh horrors) the mall on the day before Christmas. (Reminder: I'm a Jewish atheist. It's just virtually impossible not to Holiday in the Culturally Christian Hellscape that is the US. Also, my wife is Christian. So.) Found something cute for my wife, too, even tho I already know the main thing I'm getting her. Then, I realized - one of my favorite restaurants is on that block. So. I went there. I sat by myself at a table, only the indistinct restaurant hubbub around me. I read four or five chapters of my book, and ate a savory crepe, and drank lovely fruit tea, and got a scone to-go that I'll eat for lunch today. It was more than I probably should have spent on myself - about $25, including tip - but fuck it. I only get maybe a handful of days off all year, and I'm allowed to indulge a little.

Then I came home. There were no lights on. There was no noise. I had considered doing some more merch work while watching TV on the actual television (my kids are too young for subtitled shows, so usually if I want to watch My Shows I either have to do it on my computer when they're not around, or put them on and read all the subtitles aloud while trying to keep up and process the actual meaning of what I'm reading). But when I got back, the quiet and dark was so goddamn NICE that instead I curled up on the couch and read more of my book. I did that until bedtime - still about 8:15, because I'm exhausted. Then...I went to bed. And I slept long and deep, knowing that there was no chance I'd be interrupted and woken up, I didn't have to be, even in sleep, alert to every noise and possibility that I'd be needed.

I'm still exhausted and burned out, but even one night to myself felt really, really nice.

Saying "Tumblr does X" as a universal statement is doomed to failure, but generally speaking, the parenting posts I see on Tumblr, the ones with tens or hundreds of thousands of notes, speak what's apparently widely seen as a truism on here: that unless someone wants to spend 24/7 with their kids, to be 100% emotionally available at all times, is always kind and patient and perfect, they are a bad parent, maybe even abusive. I remember when covid started, there were multiple posts actively mocking the "oh god, my kids are now home all the time, how am I supposed to do this?" attitude that a lot of parents posted in despair. WhY dId YoU hAvE kIdS iF yOu DoN't WaNt To SpEnD tImE wItH tHeM?

Look at what my usual day looks like.

Look at what my day off looked like.

Do you really think I don't want to spend time with my kids? Do you really think I don't love my kids?

But I'm not a fucking MACHINE. I'm a PERSON. That's what people on Tumblr seem to forget. PARENTS ARE PEOPLE. The same tumblrinas who post ~uwu be kind to yourself rest if you need to, you should forgive yourself for that mistake you made~ will turn around, with zero sense of irony, and post "you're a bad parent if you ever raise your voice around a child."

Expecting parents to be perfect means expecting parents to be inhuman. It also means that a parent can't be poor (can't spend all your time being the perfect parent if you have to work multiple jobs or weird hours!), can't be introverted (can't be a perfect parent if you're not completely emotional available, god forbid socializing is exhausting for you), can't be on the ADHD or autism spectrum (what do you mean you forgot to get your kid to a doctor's appointment once? what do you mean over-stimulation can make you angry? how dare you get angry at a kid!), can't be depressed (gotta get out of bed every single day, gotta always be upbeat, patient, happy, or else that's Evil), can't be (like my wife) physically disabled (what do you mean your hands hurt too much to hold a child's hand? are you denying them touch?? CRUEL). And when the only answer you can offer to that is, "if you can't be that perfect you shouldn't be a parent," then you're saying people who aren't middle class to wealthy, people who aren't neurotypical, people who aren't physically able, shouldn't have children.

And honestly...what the fuck is your problem?

I'm not perfect. I tell my kids to just leave me alone sometimes. I raise my voice, especially when one of my kids starts punching the other, but also sometimes just cause I'm exhausted and Can't Anymore. I've forgotten an appointment by accident and felt like a total fucking idiot, and I've skipped an after school activity because I just wasn't up for taking them. I've served them more unbalanced, unhealthy meals than I can count. I've made many, many mistakes, but I've also done my best, and I love my kids, and I hope that when they grow up, they'll still love me even as they recognize that I wasn't perfect, just as I've come to accept my own parents' short-comings while still loving them very much. They're people, too, and the older I get, the more I understand where they were coming from.

When I fuck up, I apologize.

When they tell me they're unhappy with something I've done, I apologize, and I try to do better. Sometimes I even succeed.

This shit is hard, yo. And it's getting harder every year.

I'm BEGGING Tumblr: you need to start seeing parents as people. The way y'all talk about parenting on here is toxic, and genuinely harmful, and frankly exhausting. You have no idea what the reality of raising kids is like, and you need to shut the entire fuck up.

I had a day off yesterday.

I might get one more before the end of 2023.

I already can't wait. I am so, so, so tired. sigh

(if you actually read this whole rant and even a single word of it resonated for you, please reblog it. I'm tired of never seeing positive posts about parenting while I see negative ones with a bajillion notes.)

It’s funny because until I mentioned specifically that I was talking about Leia and Han she seemed to be coming down on their side. “Parents probably shouldn’t prioritize their children above everything else” but once I said that the character in question was the son of Han and Leia ‘oh, they shouldn't have kids because they’re too selfish to be good parents’.

On some level I do agree that they were selfish but I would say it was more of Leia was young, only 24-25, when she had Ben and being a parent is a huge responsibility and on top of that she was a Senator in the New Republic. And if I understand what I have heard about Leia, Princess of Alderaan correctly, haven’t been able to read the book yet, her caretakers were mostly Droids so she wouldn’t have thought too much about leaving Ben in the care of Droids and she probably didn’t feel like she could really ask anyone for parenting advice or people would offer advice that she didn’t feel comfortable with.

My SIL, the same one in the Ask, told me that I don’t need a crib for my baby and that a Pack and Play will do just fine but that means that the Pack and Play has a dual purpose, sleep and play, and what if I put him in there when he misbehaves then could create confusion about what the Pack and Play means to him. it is where he sleeps? Is it where he plays? Is it where he goes if he hurts the cat?

Han is harder but right now my husband is more excited about becoming a Father than he is with acknowledging the responsibilities that come with becoming a Father. He still wants to get things he doesn’t need because of X. I can’t tell you how many Yugi-oh Cards he has beyond more than enough to fill what I think is a duffel bag big enough to haul sports equipment and they still don’t all fit in it. I think he’s played with them maybe once or twice in the 18 months we have been married and asking him to sell them or teach kids at the YMCA seems to border on blaspheme; especially the teaching kids how to play part since he’s more open to selling some of them but complains about more than likely not getting a lot for the cards.

The point is Han would have to do a lifestyle change and from the sound of things in The Last Shot Han was a Stay at Home Dad when other things weren’t calling for his attention and for someone that was used to not having a house or family to return to it would be a massive change to suddenly have a wife and son to return to and not just ‘onto the next mission’ and being rootless.

And if Han was the parent that was able to be home more often by the simple virtue of being free more often than Leia was he would have had to deal with Ben’s potential Force aided meltdowns. My nephew ‘Ronnie’* when he was almost two had a meltdown in the car because there wasn’t anymore juice for him to drink and my niece ‘Chibi’* who was seven at the time had a meltdown over me turning off the TV and refusing to turn it back on until she got dressed for the day since it was after 10:30; there was a lot of ‘turn the TV back on!’ and ‘not until you get dressed’ going on.

Now imagine a similar situation to the ones above but the child in question can make objects not bolted down shake, rattle and maybe even float and flying around when they’re angry or even snatch the remote out of your hands without touching it and there’s NOTHING you can do to stop them from doing it.

In the Star Wars Legends someone (Han or Luke) recalls how the youngest Solo, Anakin, would have Force Assisted Temper Tantrums where everything in the room would end up against the walls. It was either played for laughs or just a memory, I can’t remember, but in all honesty that would be terrifying to witness a three year old trashing a room.

Another Blogger who has Special Needs children said it’s hard and it is. My younger brother ‘Joe’* was nonverbal for several years and on top of that was a Houdini; turn your back to him long enough he would push the needed objects in front of an outside door so he could get up high enough to push aside the chain installed near the top and run off and the whole neighborhood would go looking for him.

We have resources available for parents with Special Needs children whether it be Respite or Speech Lessons, this is how Joe learned how to speak, or support and resources but Leia and Han wouldn’t have had the same resource for Ben since there no doubt aren’t any books lying around that talk about different methods to use or try when raising a Force Sensitive Child. They would have been on their own and unsure how to properly handle it since they probably didn’t want to outright discourage him using the Force but didn’t want to encourage it either.

And that’s not even touching on Snoke’s interference and the Shadow of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader that hung over Leia and Han.

TL:DR  parenting is hard and parents make mistakes thinking that they are making good choices.

* Not the person’s real name

I talked to one of my SILs about Ben a bit and how he was raised, can’t remember the exact context (pairings?), and at first I didn’t mention it was Star Wars and when I did and mentioned who his parents were she, having not seen TFA or TLJ and not being a big Star Wars fan, immediately said ‘they’re both too selfish to be good parents and I felt that way for years and people are surprised when I say that. Good people but would make bad parents’.

^^^

Yeah. I’m not a fan of people who villainize Han and Leia as these horrible parents either, but one of the things that I think makes the current iteration of Skywalker family drama so compelling is that it’s this complex web of fault and mistakes and tragedy that is both and neither. Han and Leia clearly loved Ben, loved him deeply, but that wasn’t enough to protect him and give him what he needed. And frankly, I think that’s more true to life to a lot of our experiences with our families than a mustache twirling scenario where Han and Leia just let him be raised by a coffee maker in a cave somewhere or where they were perfect and Ben was a bad seed. That’s what makes it so moving and compelling, that Ben and Han and Leia have all loved and hurt each other in equal measure. And it’s what makes Han’s desperate attempt to save his son a redemption for him and for the ways he failed Ben without even meaning to– Ben’s redemption is his family’s also.