Danielle Cater: Sometimes parenting is the pits

Published 10:47 am Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Isn’t it great to be a parent? Isn’t it the most rewarding job in the world? Don’t children just make your life better?

My honest answer to these questions would be, “Not always!”  

Let’s not sugar coat the details. There are times when our children need us, and they run to us for love and support. There are even those special times when our children don’t need anything at all, yet they long to be loved on by their parents. These are the good times in our parenting eyes. But oh, there are those other times when being a parent just doesn’t seem to be paying off in the love and affection category.

My daughters, Raygan and Anna, started going to Gardendale Elementary School this year. Raygan is in second grade and Anna is in kindergarten. They had previously gone to Tabernacle Christian School, where there were probably 200 students in the whole school from birth to twelfth grade. The change from that to a public elementary school with over 900 students had to be tough on the girls.

So I figured they could use a little familiar face once in a while. After the third week of school I went to surprise them by eating lunch with them that Friday. They were both super excited to see me. Raygan invited three of her little friends to sit at the table with us and we enjoyed a very social lunch. Anna on the other hand, only wanted it to be me and her. She didn’t want any other children getting to spend this quality time with her momma. That too was a blessing.

So when the next Friday rolled around, little Anna Bug was the first one to ask, “Momma, are you going to come eat lunch with us again today?” I could tell in her eyes that she was hopeful that I would. I had to answer her in all honesty. “I probably won’t get to today, but I will see how busy we are at work. If I get a break, I will try to come see you girls.”

So of course I did what any mother would do in that situation: I got to work 45 minutes early, worked like a dog the first part of the day, and when the girls’ lunchtime came, I was sitting at the parent’s booth, looking through the doors for them.

Raygan came in first. She was excited to see me and once again we had a social, happy lunch with a few of her classmates. I checked out at the school office, ran a couple of office errands and then was checked back in and sitting at the booth when Anna walked through the lunchroom doors. I felt like a kid again, my heart racing, my excitement all over my face.

As she scanned the lunchroom, (looking for me I supposed) I waved my arms in the air and even said her name a few times. She never saw me, so as she was approaching the check- out line I walked up to her and squatted down to her level. I leaned over and said, “Hey baby girl, can I help you carry your tray?”

I looked into her eyes and…  nope, that wasn’t excitement, that wasn’t fear, that wasn’t happiness…. what was that look? She looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Mom, what are you doing here? Go home.”

That was it, you could hear it all over the lunchroom, the sound of my heart being ripped into 3,405 pieces at those words bouncing off those little lips. The lips I gave birth to. The lips I helped form in my stomach as I carried her for almost 10 months. The lips I had kissed a million times. They had turned on me. And in that moment, I had no idea what to do.

Surely she was joking. I leaned back down as we walked to her seat and said, “Anna, are you serious?” With the most serious look I think I had ever seen on her face she said, “Momma, please, just go home.” I wanted to say, “NO, no I can’t just go home. I can go to my job, where I work like a dog to make money so you can eat the food on that tray you are holding and wear the clothes that are on your back. No, home is not where I’m going, I’m going to sacrifice more of myself for you.” (Oh, I can see where moms can really get a kick out of those guilt trips I’ve heard so much about.)

Instead of listening to all of the voices in my head I said, “Anna Bug, if you really want me to leave I’ll go, but we are talking about this later.” She then told me I was in the way of her friend. Sure enough I turned around to see a little girl looking at me like I was the dumbest human on the face of the earth. I stepped back to get out of her way and bumped into the kid behind me who was holding his lunch tray and at that moment, I knew where all of these scenes out of the bully movies came from. I felt like every kid in there was gunning for me.

I wanted to cry and run away, but I knew I had to hold it together. Then I remember, I have to go sign myself out of the front office. Yes, I am probably the only parent in the history of the school to sign in for their child’s lunch and sign back out in six minutes. Oh the embarrassment. Oh the shame.

When I got back to the work, the scenario kept playing through my mind. Should I have punished her right there? Should I have made her sit with me at the table? Should I have sat right there beside her and talked with all of her friends? I probably should have done things differently, but quite honestly, I was a little hurt. I was a lot hurt.

But, also quite honestly, I remember being 5 years old and being rude to my momma. I remember how it felt when people weren’t in their regular places and being so out of sorts that I acted wrongly.

What if she really hated me? The mind game didn’t stop until I went to pick them up. Sure enough, Anna was at the front of the car line. She was smiling and ran to jump into the car squealing, “This is the best day ever!” It made me smile. She wasn’t a horrible person, she wasn’t a hateful kid. She was just a kid. A regular, irritable, moody, hungry kid.

We did have a serious talk after that and I told her about how important it is to be nice to people even when it’s not convenient at the time.

But she was more loving that night than she had been in a while. I guess we should probably cut kids a little more slack. They can’t always be in great moods; neither can we.

There will be times when being a parent feels like the most awful job in the world. But there will be other times when you couldn’t imagine your world without them. Make the tough times learning experiences. And hold on to the good times for the rest of your life.