Feeling Like A Failure

Hi my lovely readers!! Sorry I been so MIA. I had recently written a children's book and My baby turned 6 months on June 26th and has been teething and been so uncomfortable, waking up all night, my poor baby. He normally is a good sleeper and sleeps through the night, but now he’s been getting up a few times a night. Last night , we started the process at 7pm and he didn’t go to sleep till 11pm. Every time

I would sit on the glider he’d hysterical cry. If I put him in the crib, he’d hysterical cry. I basically had to stand rocking my son to sleep. My husband finally got him to sleep and put him in the crib until he woke up an hour later, then 2 hours after that, then up at 7am.   

The huge burden of establishing the tone in our families falls on women. On good days, when everyone gets along and there's peace everywhere, this can feel like a privilege. When we are having one of those impossible days where nothing goes right and everyone is tense, it gets to us. We feel bad when we don't accomplish something correctly because we're too exhausted to recognize the benefits of executing it halfway decently. Sometimes we stubbornly deny that we actually affect the atmosphere in the house. We reason that we are only one person involved in this, after all.

Sometimes when I finally put my head on the pillow after a long day, I just want to cry. If I’m being totally honest, I do cry at the end of those days. I feel like all I did was yell, argue, clean up mess after mess and made no difference whatsoever. I failed at cleaning. I failed at loving. I FAILED big time at patience. I have so much love for my baby, but did they feel any of that? I’m not sure, and that makes me feel like GIVING UP. But giving up isn’t an option. And even though it’s hard to remember it in the moment, I am a big believer in the philosophy that it takes many failures to breed success. And so, I will try again. The next second. The next minute. The next day. The next year, and on and on until hopefully one day I will look at my child and see that my endurance paid off.

What is this successful payoff? I think that is different for every parent and for every child, and it changes, possibly from day to day. For me, right now, success means lessons learned. I don’t know it all so I can’t teach it all, but we can live it together, take each challenge as it comes and hopefully above all, love each other through our failures and our victories no matter how big or small. My biggest challenge right now is to stop beating myself up over not getting it right the first, second, third time… and then trying again, all the while respecting the “failure” in the first place; meaning actually learning something, no matter how small, from each stumble.

What is a “failure?” I have so many. Losing my temper. Having zero patience. Not knowing enough as a parent. Not reading enough; not learning enough. But then for not forgetting what “they” say and trusting my instincts enough. There are so many opposing views and more opinions than anyone can handle these days, and they don’t just come at you in the checkout line anymore. They are in your bed, in your bathroom, on Instagram and they can creep in when you are feeling your lowest.

It’s so easy to get down on ourselves when we are constantly presented with the best versions of everyone around us through social media. Look at how awesome my family is, growing organic gardens, taking nature hikes, going to ballets, arts and science museums, showing how much breast milk they consume in 10 min. But what happened before or after that photo? Or behind the scenes as the shutter clicks? A puke attack? A complete meltdown? Screaming at your kid to smile and look happy!? Organic dirt thrown in your eye? Probably all of these things. But we don’t see those, who the heck wants to expose that side?

It’s no big deal, we all do it, and so we all KNOW deep down the pictures we see are not the reality of parenting (at least not the majority of it); but see it over and over and over, especially when you are having a bad day, and it creeps in. Why is everyone else so much better at parenting than I am?? The feeling of failure and isolation in a world that is so “connected” is overwhelming and confusing.

But when I take the time to quiet the status updates, parenting articles, and book advice swirling through my brain I’ve come up with this:

LOVE each other.

RESPECT each other and ourselves.

DISCIPLINE of one’s self as well as behavioral discipline.

WORK We all have jobs to do; age appropriate chores are good for everyone.

PLAY Play is a child’s work; they need time to be unstructured.

FAITH Faith in each other, belief in the goodness we all possess. Faith in ourselves; we are doing a good job.

Success to me is a well-adjusted, happy kid (who doesn’t act happy all the time), with a well-rounded exposure to many different aspects of life. But if I could gift my child one lesson to take with them on his journey, it’s that failure is okay. It’s more than okay–it’s how we learn. Failure is actually how you succeed. And so I will lead by example. I will CONTINUE to fail as a parent every day. And then I will regain my composure, take a deep breath, give a big hug and try, try again.

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