Toxic mum

• By Alison
• 11 October, 2009
• 3 Comments

We all see those kids who run wild right, and we blame the parents. We pick up the blame, and we lay it fair and square on the parents who didn’t teach their tender offspring discipline and respect, while effortlessly giving guidance and encouragement into how to be a well rounded human being. Without this magical force, their kids grew up to be those monsters who terrorised old ladies and throw rubbish on the ground, and chew without closing their mouths. It’s the parents fault, obviously. Those parents don’t do a thing. But those parents aren’t us. And they aren’t anyone we know.

So what about those parents who do teach the fruit of their loins discipline and respect, and still end up with bad eggs? Or worse still, they teach their children TOO much discipline and respect, and mentally beat the crap out of the kids soul. Without even trying. You’d call that child abuse, wouldn’t you. I am sounding out this problem because I am getting worried that I am a toxic mum. Those wild kids with no respect for authority seem to have confidence in buckets, oosing out of every pore in a caustic and externally damaging way. What would I give for a bit of that confidence for my seven year old daughter? I am really worried that she’s like she is – shy, puts herself down – because I am a damaging influence on her.

I don’t expect her to get up on stage and sing a solo, or to take the leading role in a school play. Some kids are shy, and they don’t want the limelight. That in itself is a perfectly healthy personality trait. And we always hate those cocky self sure kids who put themselves up for the audition and then sing all the songs as they walk to class. But if shyness is taken to an extreme where a child is afraid to speak loudly when walking down the street in case other people hear her, that isn’t so healthy.

She’s often hesitant to speak up in class, which is a group of kids she’s known now for three years. She fails to look people in the eye when speaking to them, and never responds to any other adults – having to be prompted to reply when spoken to. The idea of getting up and doing the colours of the rainbow song with her classmates at the school christmas festival triggered a tummy ache.

The one thing that rung bells for me the other day though was her assertion that she couldn’t get anything right when I corrected her during violin practise. If I’d gone over to her and shouted like a parental maniac, then I’d have understood her reaction. But I didn’t, I just simply said that rhthym is not right, all those notes have the same value and she burst into tears.

She can’t simply be like this because she’s got high standards. She has to have got this downtrodden feeling from someone, and it’s got to be me. Sometimes I AM a parental maniac.

As a parent you have to learn everything as you go. But learning without any external evaluation isn’t a guarantee of being right. I always wanted to be thought of as a patient, loving, enduring sort of person. But I am probably about as patient as a self absorbed teenager. And I am far to quick to get annoyed when they do something wrong. I know I have a lot of other bad habits that maybe I really should have got rid of. Wanting to sleep in and have coffee brought up to me is probably one of them. And yet I live for the day when my children can work the cappucino machine!

There are lots of things I am not guilty of. I don’t lock them in their rooms and feed them gruel. I don’t hit with anything harder than a hammer, I don’t make them wear crocheted cardigans made by aunty maude, and I don’t send them down to the offy to buy mummy her gin. (I really don’t know how he saw through that fake ID, it was quality stuff.)

But it’s not just the children. Mr Evil has gone neurotic too. I started to take his colllar off every night, because in order to prevent him from wreaking carnage upon the birdlife, I equipped his fuzzy little head with a jingly bell. And in order to punish me for this transgression, every morning at about 4am he starts a scratch-a-thon that has his collar doing the exorcist twirl all on its own making a gay jingle song that is so innapproriate for 4am. I am not sure what IS appropriate at 4am, but it’s not the cat equivalent of Mr Whippy.

This is why the cat is called Mr Evil.

(Actually, that name was bestowed upon him by Mr Boxer Shorts (who has just found out that I am calling him Mr Boxer Shorts in public, and isn’t too impressed…) because Toby likes to saunter over to his side of the bed and casually bit his wrist.

I maintain that he just wants to play, but mr BS thinks it’s more likely that Mr evil is plotting to do away with him, and thus have an entire half king size bed to himself.

I point out that this is ridiculous, since he already sleeps where he likes anyway.)

But I digress… I started to notice that the nightly bell ringing was still going on, albeit without the bell. And then I noticed that half his fur seems to be lying in clumps on the blanket on the sofa. He’s been over grooming himself and biting his legs so hard that he now looks like he’s been through several rounds of chemo. He certainly isn’t gorgeous anymore. So either he’s allergic to something, or he’s stressed out because I won’t stop picking him up, flipping him on his back like a baby and crooning to him.

Actually, it could just be dermatitis, and the vet gave him a shot, but that aside – I need to address my levels of toxidity with the children. If I am instilling fear and shyness into them by being impatient, demanding and caustic, then I need to fix it immediately. Because when it comes right down to it, I blame the parent.