One of my best mom friends — let’s call her Kate — is having a hard Monday.
Her partner is out of town, and she is staring down a whole week of solo parenting a toddler who is in a “pushing back” kind of mood. Kate works full-time and runs a thriving side business, and her partner travels often for work, so I can only speculate about how existentially tired she is.
Ugh, do I empathize. The thought of facing down my toddler solo when he’s in the mood to *negotiate* makes my stomach turn. He is already a tougher haggler than I will ever be (and I am a lawyer for a living), and given the lack of consistent sleep we have all been getting, I can imagine the major case of the Mondays my friend is having because I have been some version of there. I have done some version of that.
We have a third mom on our text thread — Jane — who is just one of those effortlessly gentle people. So is her husband. In the midst of our Monday bitch session, we get on the subject of how Kate and I try to channel them both in moments of short patience with our own kids.
“What would Jane and Doe do?” I often ask myself, if I catch myself about to yell at my son.
Kate does the same thing. “Gentle” is the north star of parenting these days, and you can quickly get into a rut of feeling like a failure if gentle is not your natural vocabulary.
Both Kate and I come from yelling families. Gentle is not really something that comes very easily to either of us. But I like to think that we are great parents anyway. We just need to tap back into what makes us great in general.
What are your strengths, and how do you parent with them?
That is what I ask Kate. I remind her that she’s a great teacher and thoughtful cook, a strong person who takes a lot on and doesn’t complain (except to her mom friends on a rainy Monday morning). Can she make pizza with her son one night this week, and show him how to roll the dough? Can they both relax and just watch a movie? What would happen if they go to McDonalds for dinner and play on the slide?
I am not a parenting guru, or a child development professional. But I am convinced that there are two things to do when you feel like you are failing some invisible “gentle parenting” contest and/or your dependents seem to be mutinying against you:
You play with them. You put your phone in the other room, and you do what they want to do - playdoh, stickers, blocks, pretend dinosaurs - whatever. (This is not an original idea, I am aware — but it is one that really, really works).
You play to your strengths. You remind yourself of what makes you good — at work, with friends, at the gym, and wherever you feel like you are a decent, maybe even excellent person — and you translate that into your relationship with your child.
With that, I am going to get back to my day job - but I am curious: what makes you strong? And how do you channel it as a parent?