I talk about this a lot but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. What if we were given that extra hour we all crave? What would we do with it? Watch another show? Fold another pile of laundry? Extend family time? SLEEP! Ahhh that’s just another one of my fantasies.
Anyway, there aren’t enough hours in the day and no matter what your family looks like (single mom, stay at home mom, two parent household, etc.) if you have a dwelling, there are a lot of things that need to get done to make it “livable”. Matt and I like to split responsibilities. I personally look at everything like a business proposition (I’ll pick Caroline up every day if you do the dishes kind of deal) and he’s more about teamwork (If I sort the laundry he’ll throw it in) but either way it gets everything done. 6 times out of ten…something bugs me about the way Matt has completed a chore and it causes a sassy comment on my part and an eye roll on his part. Example: Matt’s not the best towel folder in the world. He folds them in an odd shape and then shoves them in the cabinet…it drives me crazy…CRAZY…but at 6 am when I’m showering, I could care less what fold the towel is in as long as it’s clean. So why the sassy comment on my end? I don’t want to re-fold the towels. Why do I feel the need to be rude when all my husband has done is try to help me around the house? Who knows. I think it’s a woman thing and if it’s not, it’s a Vanessa thing and he married me for who I am (lucky me! He’s wonderful.) The WORST part is that we find ourselves speaking through our baby when we get into the sassy comment-eye roll spat….it’s usually something to the tune of “Your daddy is driving me crazyyyyyy…” HUGE mistake. There is never an okay reason to include your child on frustrations with your spouse regardless of how insignificant they are and although I’ve always felt this way, I had a major lightbulb moment a couple of weeks ago.
I was at the mall and while checking out at Nordstrom, I overheard a mother and daughter talking negatively about the husband/dad. She was telling her daughter how worthless he was etc., and the daughter was in agreement. I couldn’t believe 1.) what they were saying and 2.) how loud they were being about their “disgust” with husband/dad. The worst part is that they paid for their new clothes with the money “Mr. Worthless Dad” provides for them….who knows, maybe he really is a terrible man but regardless, it made me sick and made me realize that my harmless “Your daddy drives me crazy…” to our 1 year old daughter can spiral into that fast forward 16 years.
Our children aren’t our best friends and everyday life isn’t girly happy hour. I learned a big lesson that day and will do my 100% best to not include our daughter (future children, too) in any frustrations big or small that I may have with my hubby. It’s not healthy and I respect him and our family too much! AND I for sure don’t want to turn into Kris (the mom) Kardashian! (Shoot…I cropped Khloe’s head…she’s just TOO tall!)
What do you think about the children/BFF relationship? Good? Bad? Situational?
My first job right now is to parent. I enjoy spending time with my kids and we do have fun together – we try to take each child on individual outings a couple of times a month so that we can have quality time and build relationships. With that quality time, a friendship will form, but at this point in their young lives, I am not here to be their friend – I am here to be their parent… and I believe that we will have a close friendship when they are older because of the parenting we are doing now.