Saturday 24 September 2011

Concerning Mothering

I think I do a pretty good job at being a mamma.
I'm trying the very best I can.

If you were to witness me 'mothering' at home you would indeed witness moments of raised voices, tears and "time-out".
F-bombs being dropped in my head {just being honest!}
But you would also see many moments of laughter, fun, peace and contentment.

I had a skype call with my mum the other day (who happens to be a Play Therapist), desperate to glean some advice from her in certain areas of parenting I feel out of my depth in.
Namely dealing with and understanding reasons for public tantrums from an incredibly independent four year old.


Luca was picking at some chewing gum on the pavement. Awesome.

Along with some great encouragement and advice, apparently the underlying reasons are because he's craving my attention and misses me.

The problem with these tantrums happening out in public is that people don't see the reasons for the tantrum, they just see the "naughty little boy". Or they see the mother seemingly ignore her screaming child and walk away. {this tactic works about 92% of the time}.

I've had a week full of encounters with the general public regarding my children and their behaviour.
Some encounters have been good and kind, while others have been not-so-good and even downright rude.

I had a man in a van toot and point his finger at me in admonishment as I stood waiting, with a buggy full of children and groceries, 10 meters further up the street from Luca who was sitting on the pavement and refusing to move.

When Luca has some 'pavement time' I have passers-by tell me my child is sitting on the pavement...
Yes. Indeed.

About 1 minute after Luca's discovery of the 30 year old chewing gum on the pavement, my absolute disgust of him picking at it and the subsequent screaming that followed when I physically removed him from it, an old lady had gained on us and started pointing at us with her walking stick while obviously giving us a piece of her mind. Fortunately I couldn't hear her but Luca obviously caught some of it and his face darkened, eyebrows furrowed and bottom lip came out. We carried on walking and Luca kept on turning around and scowling at the old lady while she continued to pursue us with her opinion.
I was ready to turn around and have-a-wee-chat but fortunately we were now late for a doctor's appointment so we kept on moving.

And then there's the kind lady who, while in a cafe, offered to hold my crying, hungry baby while I got the other two boys settled eating their lunch so I could then feed Max.

Then there was the lady who, upon seeing Luca run out the door of the same cafe in search of a toilet even though I was asking him to please wait, and I was unable to pursue because I was feeding Max and couldn't leave Beni, offered to help take him to the toilet saying "It's okay, I've had kids of my own, I know how it is".

Yesterday between the hours of 10am-3pm I had THREE people tell me "You've got your hands full!".
Bless them.
I will be the first to agree that, yes I have my hands full, but actually it isn't a bad thing.
Having my hands full with the busy-ness of raising my children is, in fact, a blessing, a privilege and an honour.





To be the parent who gets to stay at home with these little guys and spend my days with them is a privilege beyond words. I don't take this for granted. No way.
Sure we've had to take a big reduction in our household income and try to survive on a shoestring budget. And we are. Just.
Our children are our priority and Austin and I both agree that this is the right thing for us to do.
We are pleased with this decision, even though financially it's a struggle.

I'm learning to be more confident in my role as a mother, be it at home or out in public.
I'm learning the importance of having 'special time' with each of my boys on a regular basis.
I know that my boys are fortunate to have me as their mother.
I can't be perfect for them and I will never put this expectation on myself.
But I do expect myself to do my very best and I know, with God's help and wisdom, these boys of ours will be raised to be strong, confident, caring, Godly men.

:::

7 comments:

  1. As Dad would say, with a proud gentle smile, "you're AMAZING", plant a kiss on the head, sniff, matter settled.
    You are xx

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  2. I'm a definite "walk away-er" from my kids when they are tantruming and I really don't understand what people get so upset about!!?? I had an old lady growl at me once when I was carting 4 crying kids through the mall after an appointment for 2 of them to get their hair cut. The woman stood in front of me and started yelling that I should take my kids home!! haha ummmm that was what I was trying to do! They however, wanted big sugary drinks from McDonalds that I was denying them. It's a crazy world at times hey. Hang in there, and wow if you manage to keep those f bombs in your head you're doing AMAZING :)

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  3. You are doing an amazing job Geets, and I'm definitely in a position to say so after recently witnessing it first hand, 24hrs per day, for 5 weeks. You are the sort of mother I could only aspire to be. I am very very proud of you! xxx

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  4. Yes Brigitte, as Gretchen said, Dad (and I!) definitely say, "You're AMAZING"! All I would add is God bless those wonderful ladies who help you out and may He provide many more Angels in
    Disguise whenever you venture out with your gorgeous little boys.
    You're a fantastic Mamma and Austin is a fantastic Papa to your boys. You are doing a wonderful, wonderful job and maybe you need to hear this more often and we need to say it more often. Love you xx

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  5. and as you grow in confidence as a mother...you learn to completely ignore strangers and their lousy two cents...

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  6. Hi Brig. Found this link from Sharni's blog. Cool you. Btw Jamila used to throw hardcore tantrums and whack her head majorly and frequently on the floor. She's mega brainy now so heads are obviously able to sustain full-on abuse.Recently she had one of her(age 10) meltdowns(MAJOR drama-"this is the WORST day of my life,everyone hates me"etc stuff, to which i could have been alarmed and thought of how to counsel her but in the end I actually said "You've been asked to do the dishes;harden up". Not to negate the need to probe deeper at times though, but you might with your wee boy just have an expressive and assertively personality-plus being.Yay! They rock! see you xx

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  7. P.S I don't mean to be 'anonymous', I just haven't posted a comment on a blog before that i can remember, so i just clicked anything. Kirsten

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