I almost snatched my child.

Literally.

When I tell you this work of healing yourself to become a better parent is hard, I don’t mean slightly uncomfortable. I mean as hard af. I mess up every day. Multiple times.

I needed to be alone. I had already retreated to my bedroom because I had had enough peopling for the day. But also, Mighty and I had a hard conversation. My nerves were already on edge.

I needed to be alone to regroup. To feel my feelings. To process and move on. But I could tell that she needed to connect with me for assurance that we were all good. As my friend told me, sometimes two people’s needs are incompatible.

So she’s in the room. And I really want to be by myself. But I also want to give her the connection she needs. I’m sitting under the covers with a pillow behind me. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Let’s just watch something on tv so we can be in each other’s presence, but quietly.

But she ain’t being quiet. And she said something in a way that hit that frazzled nerve. Baaaby. I did the move.

You know the Black Momma move (maybe all momma’s, IDK) where all of a sudden your mother is in your face and you are astonished because you didn’t know she could move that fast…yeah, that move.

I flipped the covers back and I jerked my body forward. She looked over, face full of fear.

And then I just sat back. I didn’t even make it out the bed. Her face stopped me.

I asked if we could take a moment separately because I needed some time for myself. It scared her though. It scared me too. Because just that quickly, you can lose your focus and turn back into that yelling parent. The one that uses fear to control. The one that isn’t in charge of their emotions.

As parents, we be trying to meet ALL the needs at once…and it just don’t work like that. I set myself up for failure by doing what I had been trained to do – put myself last.

Luckily, Mighty gives me a lot of grace. And I give myself a lot of compassion. And we try again, learning and building together.

#deschooling #deschoolingoutloud #unschooling #consciousparenting