Gametes In Love

This might be a bit all over the place, because I’m struggling to formulate my thoughts well.

I worry about my relationship with the boys when they reach their teens and beyond. I observe S with G, especially and realize that he has strengths in his ability to dissolve escalating tantrums (coming from G) that I just don’t. I can see how fights can play out with our teenagers, and I see S handling it well (handling it right) and I am not. I am jealous of this. Primarily because I know this will mean they will always approach him first, trust him more, and confide in him more. I have a great relationship with my mom and I want that for myself with our kids. I just don’t know how to “get there”, and I feel that if I don’t figure it out soon, it will be lost on me forever.

I realize that I project my emotional coping skills to my kids. I wouldn’t say I’m unemotional towards them, but in the grand scheme of things, I know I’m reserved toward them. Of course, I hug, and kiss, and tickle, and tell them I love them. But I don’t profess my love to them in overt-displays of affection. When they fall, I don’t rush to them straight away, unless I feel that want they went through is truly cause for concern. I want them to internalize what happened, and decide if they can manage that experience on their own, or if they really need me. I will always be there for them of course: I will pick them up when they fall from tripping, and kiss all necessary boo-boos. But now I wonder if that’s bad. If it’s not enough. If it’s too much on the reserved spectrum.

For the record, I am not doing this because of their gender. I would treat a girl the exact same way.

Since initially writing this, I realized that it wasn’t my reservation that I find to be a problem, as much as what I expect from that reservation. I use my reservation to process my feelings such that I can verbalize them coherently later, and also to make rational choices (the whole count to 3 before you say something in anger thing?). I know it’s unrealistic for me to expect my 3.5 year old to do the same, but it just come down to the fact that I can’t relate to someone who acts on every emotion instantly. And that I don’t know how to handle that sort of expression.

Then there’s discipline. I feel that I’m the harsher dispenser of discipline at home. Granted, I pick my battles, but S, again is far more creative on this than I. I wish I can say I know exactly what he does, so I can watch and learn from it, but it’s not any one thing, so it’s hard for me to see. He almost senses when G is heading for a melt-down and at level 2 of the hot-head meter he intervenes. On my end, we’ll go up to 10, spend half an hour in shriek town, and then achieve house-hold sanity again, albeit shot nerves and a lot of tension. He’s a perfect partner in that regard. But here, I don’t just want him to be a partner. I want to be able to do the same.

Have I read parenting books? Yes. Maybe not the right ones.

I’m feeling stuck. And lost. I want to move forward. But I don’t know how.

Update: I’ve gotten a lot of positive pats on the back since writing this yesterday among the lines that kids will come back to you and get it later. And while this helps, a little, I honestly don’t want to wait until my kids are in their 20s to realize that we have a good thing going. I just want them to know I can be there for them to sort things out. And I’m worried I’m not building on that trust too much.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2012 at 10:16 am and is filed under Raising Pre-schooler, Raising Toddler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.