I’ve had a few jobs in my time and none of them were stress-free. I’ve been under the pressure of emergency situations with the NHS, I’ve listened to customers swearing at me as I waited on tables, and I’ve thrown up every morning for months because I was so afraid of my boss. None of it was easy, and I wouldn’t wish those careers on my worst enemies.
So when I was working several jobs under this huge pressure, the idea of spending my days doing nothing more than watching cartoons with a kid was a blissful dream to me. Being at home, listening to music, time without other adults, being called ‘mum’ – it sounds like fun rather than a chore.
I’d listen to stories of parents struggling for various reasons and, although I empathised with them, privately I still believed it would be easier than what I was living with.
I was wrong.
For me, the parenting problems most other parents experience are a little more challengling because of the issues we have at home, but they are well documented and not what I’m here to talk about.
Even when I remove the complications my mental illness creates, the worry of parenting every day and being responsible for the growth and development of another human is undeniably serious and scary.
I spend most of my parenting hours negitiating harder than an FBI agent in a hostage situation. Everything, and I mean everything, is about finding the easiest route to a successful outcome. Over the years, the need to make things happen without a headache means I’ve had to bend the rules I thought I’d care about. It turns out I don’t.
But when you bend rules to get your own way, when the stress of the situation is over and they’re safely deposited in the classroom, you end up wondering if the rule breaking was worthwhile. Did your management of the situation have a detrimental effect on the kid overall? Are you still doing things in a way that will help them grow and develop well? Are you still imparting the good manners and setting the good example you’d told yourself you would?
Ultimately, are you doing a good job?
Making peace with negotiating
I don’t feel like I’ve learned a huge amount as a parent, because I always feel like I’m doing a sub-par job. But I have learned one important thing. Something that’s not just important for our daughter, it’s important for my own peace of mind and acceptance of the status quo.
Sometimes, SOMETIMES, you need to let it go.
Now, this statement is probably true of all relationships. In order to keep the peace you have to leave a scab that you desperately want to pick for the greater good. Regardless of how right you know you are, letting it go will ultimately mean less disruption for everyone.
When I let something go with my partner it’s usually because it’s not really worth upsetting the peace for. He didn’t clean up his cups that day, the washing on his side of the bed is becoming a pile bigger than everest, he forgot an anniversary. Honestly, things could be far worse, so often I do let it go (although he’ll probably find that hard to believe!).
For our daughter the rule bending and ‘letting go’ is about the things she wants to do vs. my idea of what’s appropriate. For example; she’s finally starting to enjoy music, and as someone who advocates the use of creativity for good mental health I am always proud to see her trying to copy lyrics and dance moves. Research tells me that the positive effect of creativity transfers to autistic children the same way, so it’s important. Even more so when I consider how little she was able to say just a year ago. She doesn’t hear music the same as me. The rhythm, rhyming and lyrics help with so many aspects of language and communication, and encourage creative thinking. For all these reasons I encourage her to listen to as wide a variety of songs as I can find.
At first it was my influence that engaged her. I’d use popular songs that I enjoy and show her the videos on You Tube. I deliberately picked songs I knew she’d like. Roar by Katy Perry, Single Ladies by Beyonce, Hit me baby one more time by Britney Spears, I’m still standing by Elton John, Shape of you by Ed Sheeran – a variety of the songs on my playlist. What’s not to love?
But our daughter is becoming tech savvy, and is mostly able to navigate YouTube on her own now. She’ll turn on the TV after school and put on some music as soon as she gets in. Until recently I saw this as a good thing. Most kids are watching never-ending cartoons and filling their heads with requests from santa of more plastic that’ll be in landfill before new year. I therefore actively support her love of music.
But You Tube is just as clever as she is, and started presenting her with new music it thought she’d like. Although she’s using my account, there are parental controls installed so I stupidly thought anything presented would be appropriate.
Again, I was wrong.
She’s developed a love for dancing in line with her love of pop tunes, and as it’s an activity that promotes physical health, so I love seeing her to try the dance moves out. It reminds me of 6-year-old Steph, doing the same thing to a Kylie Minogue song. I couldn’t see a reason why this would ever be a bad thing. So, imagine how wide my mouth became when I saw her trying to emulate the dance moves to the song ‘Sorry’ by Justin Beiber. For anyone who hasn’t seen the video here’s the link.
She’s 6.
This time I had an internal battle to try and negotiate. I want her to love music, I want her to enjoy being physically active, I want her to be her own person and discover things she enjoys on her own terms. But I’m also aware that these women gyrate, twerk and bounce around throughout the video, and the prude inside me wasn’t happy with that. Truth be told, twerking is something I’d love to be able to do. Given the size of my arse it would be great to be able to do something useful with it (insert crude joke here!). Although I love this video, the song, and the dancing, something inside me wasn’t happy about it for our daughter.
Fast forward to Monday morning. It’s time for school and, as usual, there’s a war raging at home because our daughter doesn’t want to go / refuses to get ready / feels upset / can’t explain what’s wrong / still want to go. It happens every morning in most houses around the world and I know it’s a stressful time for everyone involved.
She has long hair and as a hairy woman myself, I like to take care of it for her. I lovingly brush and plait her tresses daily and make sure it’s shinier than Cinderellas. It’s 10 minutes I get with her every day that I enjoy. Until recently.
Like most things, hair brushing has become the enemy. We think it’s because she knows she’s going to school, but she can’t explain it so we’ll never know. Whatever the reason, my FBI terrorist negotiator has been showing up on weekdays for months now, and she’s tired of the arguments. In exasperated fatigue, one morning I uttered the words
“If I put on ‘Sorry’ will you let me finish your hair?”.
I’d given in on my inner prude, favouring stress-free combing over the indignation of my child every time the brush lightly passed over a single strand. And, of course, she was delighted with the outcome. A video I’d banned was now right in front of her every morning. Inevitably, she started to copy the dance moves and learn the words. A week or so after starting this slippery slope, I found myself wondering how bad this decision actually was. Why was I bothered about this video? Why was I worried about any influence it would have on her? Why am I being so ‘Mary Whitehouse’ about this?
I decided to give myself a quiet parenting reality check.
I watched the video end-to-end without her presence so I could get an honest idea of what I was watching. Bottom line…this is a video filled only with women. They are a mix of shapes and sizes, dressed mostly in jeans and shorts and they are brilliant dancers. The lyrics discuss the need to apologise and, without delving too deeply, this is a good lesson to pass on to her. Yes, some of the dance moves might be classed as ‘provocative’, some of the clothes are too, but no more than those of Beyonce or Britney, whose videos I chose to show her. Of all the things she could watch, was this really that bad?
No.
I would never be so cocky as to class myself as a great parent, most of the time I wouldn’t class myself as ‘acceptable’. But I do try hard, and having a child with autism means we have extra things to consider whenever we’re helping her development (which is basically all the time).
I’ve had to make peace with the idea that she’s going to watch stuff on the internet that I’m not going to be able to screen, and right now if the worst of that is a Justin Beiber video, then where’s the harm?
My own mum was more prudish than I am, and although I loved her more than anything, I don’t want to emulate her parenting style and ideals. We are very different people, and I want things to be different for our daughter.
My own paranoia as a result of mental illness will always make the analysis of my own parenting pretty harsh. For the same reason my fear over the problems that might arise as a result of her watching the wrong things online will be exaggerated too. I had ideas of an easy parenting journey with us both imparting good manners, knowledge and attitudes towards life. They were a pipe dream – life is never that rosy. But I realise it’s hard to understand these things without alternative perspectives and the benefit of retrospect. It took me time, but I negotiated with myself that ‘Sorry’ was a tiny win for her, and a huge win for me.
So, at about 8am every day you’ll find me sat here with our kid, brushing the knots out of her hair while she tries to twerk and sing badly to Justin Beiber. It’s a tiny price to pay for an easier grooming session, and while I’d tried to make her forget the song at first I think banning it just made her want it more. You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, and all that.
Does this make me an even worse parent? The jury’s out on that one. I’m told I do a good job in difficult circumstances, but like most parents I always see huge room for improvement. As for her, the most important part of this story, learning lyrics to songs has proven to be an effective way of getting around Language Disorder and some of the other challenges of Autism. Although her conversations are still a struggle, she enjoys music and communicates through dance too, something I’m always proud to see.
Negotiating with myself has become the bigger battle. The conflict between mum and daughter is far smaller if I let her have the things she wants. I’m not talking about material things like toys – teaching her to be kind, grateful and earn those things will take years. I’m talking about music, videos, card games, drawing on my iPad, watching movies – simple things that cost nothing. If I take a step back and understand what I’m refusing and rationalise whether my decisions are the right ones, I normally find I’m behaving more like my own mother, and passing on the values that she had. Although she was a great mum, I wanted to be my own parent, and develop my own style, pass on my own beliefs and values, and make sure I did everything I could to make it possible for my daughter grow into the best version of herself.
She’s already well on the way.
If you don’t agree with my decision, sorry.
The picture
This is the first time I’ve talked about parenting in detail on here. I usually avoid the subject for fear of criticism and negative comments. But I chose to talk about this experience because I was creating a problem that didn’t need to exist.
I felt my daughter earned the right to choose the picture to accompany this post, so I asked her to pick from a selection online, and I created my own version.
This is a picture of Woody and Forky from Toy Story 4. Forky is a character she adores, proving once again that it’s often the simple things that make a child happy. We’ve made our own Forky at home using a plastic fork, play-doh and pipe cleaners, and she loves him. Further proof that not everything has to cost the earth.
Thanks so much for reading. 💜
Creative Steph 