Chasing away Chubby

I hate myself

Posted lodyangel on May 12th, 2008 | Filed under General

Today was not a good mother’s day.  BF was not so great.  He did buy me a beautiful orchid though and that was nice, but he was pretty much an ass the rest of the day.  The kids fought constantly and  just did everything possible to drive me crazy.  The worst came at the family gathering.   We had a dinner for Mom and Sis3.  Sis3’s b-day was  this past week. 

All my life Sis3 has been my best friend.  She is 3 years younger and we spent our lives being there for each other.  My Bf is her husband’s brother.  We have been as close as 2 sisters can be.  For years her husband was a monster.  So we spent alot of time together because we had alot in common dealing with the crap “the brothers” put us through.  Now after almost divorcing her husband, he went to a therapist got put on some pretty heavy pills and now she is trying to get pregnant.  All this is fine.  I am happy for them.  What I can not take is that she now thinks she is so much better than me.  I am a single Mom of 4 kids.  I work full time, have been going to college full time.  Between taking care of the kids, taking them to and from their activities, doing homework, spending time with BF, I don’t have alot of time left to do much but sleep.  I haven’t really cleaned my house in over a month.  It looks like it exploded inside…literally.  I’m not proud of it.  I just have NOT had time to work on it. I know it needs to be done, but we have not been home-and when we are we have been outside the weather had been so nice.  We literally would not come in until it was bed time.  So the house is a wreck.  

My kids are basically good kids.  My boys are on honor roll, never give their teachers an ounce of trouble.  At home they are different.  They fight with each other, argue, play rough, and sometimes are loud. This is how they are around the family.  I have a large family.  I have 4 sisters, and with their families and their husbands and their kids there is alot of noise when ever we get together.  But, my kids are especially loud.  Maybe it’s because they are 3/4 boys, maybe it’s because I have the only boys in the entire family, I don’t know…. but the rest of my family seem to complain about them.  Well not all my family really, but just my Sis3 and her husband.  They (especially their double uncle) are always acting like they are so bad.  No mater what goes on even if they are just playing my brother in law acts like they are awful.  The worse part is my Sis3, who was their favorite aunt, agrees with him.  This has been going on for awhile.  Tonight we were all sitting around when they started in on my parenting.  That is also a new theme for them.  They have NO children of their own.  They have been watching “Supernanny” and now they think they are parenting experts. 

I laugh as I write this.

So they started off with that I needed to watch Supernanny.  I was like I have watched Supernanny….you can’t parent based on a TV show.  So my BF is like “you should spank them more.”  I’m like “I do when they need it.”  My sister is like that is what you are doing wrong.  Like I spank too much???  I say “my kids rarely get spanked.  They have to do something SERIOUS to get spanked.”  My Sister is like that is what you are doing wrong, I should disclipline more creatively.    They are acting like I never discipline my children.  One of my kids is usually on punishment of some kind at any given moment.  I ground them from their favorite toys, games, TV, activities.  They have to write papers when they say or do ugly things to explain to me why they should not do that.  They have to stand in time out or sit on the naughty rug for hitting.  I try to make the punishment fit the crime.   I was just crushed over the whole thing.  I was dreading going for this exact reason.  I am so sick of everyone thinking they know better than me how to raise my kids.  Just completely sick.   My kids aren’t that bad.   I know they act up, but I really think that they aren’t used to having boys.  The girls (my oldest 2 sisters each had 2 girls) never acted like this.  My  daughter is not loud, but can get that way when you pair her with the boys.   I don’t know.  I’m just sick.

So after that lovely conversation i gather my kids and go home.  I get home and my sis2 calls.  My neice needs to borrow my computer. So i tell her to come down.  I am in the middle of cleaning when they get here, and of course she has to comment on the condition of my house.  When I explain that we haven’t really been home, that the kids have not been doing their chores (which is a huge help), that I have been just too busy to clean, she comments after I say the chore thing “well, you can’t expect them to clean the whole house.”  WTH?  Did I or have I EVER expected my kids to clean my entire house?  Never.  They have daily chores…folding clothes, taking out trash, cleaning the livingroom, cleaning bathrooms once a week, sometimes sweeping or mopping, Oh and to keep their own rooms tidy.  But that is between 4 of them and we all know that does not keep a house clean.  So I just explain that’s not what I expect, and try to explain how my house got this way, but honestly i don’t really know.  At times the house seems to have a mind of its own and things ooze from their proper places into the floor, and the clothing seems to dirty itself.  The mess just appears and I pick up here and there, but unless I an spend several hours a day on the mess, it just does not seem to go anywhere.  It stays and lingers and takes up residence and before long the mess is a part of the house as I watch the kids step over  it and around it, never once thinking they should bend over and pick it up.  And the mess grows and changes, and gets bigger, and sometimes smaller, but it evolves daily until I grow weary of trying to shrink it and I find myself stepping over things in the floor just to save my sanity.  Just to give my back a break, and just to feel like I have a life outside this aluminum metal rectangular box that I call home.  This metal box with its tornadic damage inside that not only damages the appearance of the house but damages how I see me, how I feel about myself, effects my self esteem until I don’t like myself.  The mess controls me and my emotions, it lowers my self worth untilI feel like a complete failure, until I feel worthless.  I feel powerless to do anything about it, so often I walk back out the door, out to my flower beds, and garden and lawn that i can control, and I leave the mess to evolve another day.  That mess makes me feel horrible.  That mess makes me feel like a failure not only as a person, but as a woman, and as a mother.  In a society where your motherhood is judged by how clean your house is i know I am a terrible failure.  I am a failure at this and at my weight loss too.  I can’t bring myself to help myself.  I feel paralyzed.  So today, on the day where I should have felt loved and honored I feel like I should just throw in the towel and give up.   Because nothing I do is good enough, and no matter how hard I try I will never be anything other than this fat, poor, slobby-ass, single mother.  One who society views as worthless.  Maybe today society is right.