Catch 22

There is a catch 22 when it comes to parenting and many things that come with adulthood. We are often tossed into life unprepared in some way or another. We’re expected to know who we are, who and what we want to be and how to handle every situation, but most of us don’t. Not everyone is willing to own up to that, but I am. I have a good idea of who I am and who I’d like to continue to grow to be and yes, I am definitely still feeling it all out.

My daughter is 17 and in just a few short months, she’ll be considered a legal adult. She’ll be old enough to vote, go to war, smoke cigarettes. Like her mother at that age, she thinks she knows everything. Oh what I wouldn’t give to know everything again! What a blessing it would be to know how stupid adults must be and have the freedom of a young life stretching out in front of me.

For nearly a year, I have struggled to get her over those last few hurdles that she needs to face before adulthood. I’ve struggled with helping her find a job, pushing to remind her that she is a senior this year and once that’s over with, education becomes her choice. Like any other mom, I’ve struggled with teaching her the skills that she’s going to need like picking up dirty clothes, washing clothes and dishes, how to manage money (kind of hard to do without an income, no?)…Each hurdle I’m faced with an insurmountable resistance.

Now, to be fair to my daughter, she has an under active thyroid which affects her moods and has been dealing with depression. However, since things are rarely fair to me, I am going to be honest and say she has been caught lying multiple times, not just to me, but to other people as well. She appears to be compliant with certain requests or advice that’s tossed her way by myself, her therapist and a few others who care about her and mean well. That appearance is usually short lived and then we start back at square one again.

I am not just her mother, I am a person. I am flawed like anyone else and as I said before I’m trying to feel it all out for myself, and my children. I am, to be frank, doing the best I can without screwing up too much, just like most other parents. Here is that catch 22. Choosing to be a parent or getting surprised, we all get into this not knowing exactly what we’re doing 100% of the time. We are, in the best of times, wise from life experiences that are both good and bad. I have shared as much of my wisdom with my daughter as possible and because I’ve made a lot of bad choices in my life, my biggest hope is that she is able to learn from them before she needs to. I am doing my very best, but I get told far too often that my best isn’t good enough. When I seek out help, I’m told to “deal with it”. This doesn’t just happen with parenting either, this is the catch 22 of being an adult. You go about your life, trying to do your best to make the world a little better and sometimes you need help along the way, but sometimes when you’re unsure and need help, you’re told to deal with it.

I struggle every day to give my daughters what they need not only to be able to survive but to thrive. And then I struggle against thinking I’m a bad parent because I have children and a mother and friends and family who all criticize my parenting. And then I struggle when I have to push my daughter in ways that feel completely foreign to me. After I push, I struggle again to try to remind myself that I’m doing the best I can and I’m a good mom when those same people criticize me again for taking another approach.

I dealt with a very grouchy 17 year old yesterday who decided to stay up all night, yet again. I picked her up from therapy, promptly, only to find that she was in a “mood”. She took her mood out on me, on her sister, my dogs, even my doors. This morning I was met with resistance when she decided she wanted to stay home from school and I had to remind her that she simply can’t miss any more days. Why? Because she lied about being sick for over a week, to me, to three different doctors, to her father, to her therapist….And then I was met with the grouchy 17 year old again. And after I dropped her off at school? I bought myself breakfast (because morning drinking is socially unacceptable), came home, sat down and cried. This has been going on so long now, I just keep hoping for some middle ground, some peace, a little less resistance, a little more of the love and respect and patience I have shown returned to me.