Respecting Your Limits: Avoiding Mama Burn-Out

My daughter, Claire, and I engage in all kinds of kid-friendly activities on a daily basis. We read books, do puzzles, make play-doh, sing songs, wash her baby dolls, bake cookies, occasionally, we enter a land of make-believe.

When I say occasionally, I mean that this morning I said to my two year old, “I don’t want to play castle and princesses right now.” I also mumbled under my breath, “Imaginative play just isn't my favorite thing.”

The mumble part was directed at no one in particular, but my husband, George, piped in with, “But it’s her favorite!” His tone was filled with implication or, at least that’s how I heard it.

What I heard was that I was guilty of depriving my daughter of a vital experience that was essential to her very being.

My husband’s no dummy. He knows just how to get to me. He had appealed to an insidious side of myself. -- the part that desires to be all things to all people at all times, especially my daughter. I almost bought into it, too. I almost succumbed to the "perfect mommy" myth.

But then I remembered something about my husband. I remembered how George flat out refuses to indulge in sensory play with Claire. I'm talking the second I even mention the word "cloud dough", he practically alerts the press about his refusal to get all messy and stuff.

Sensory play is considered mom's domain. I graciously abide.

So I’m taking a cue from my husband. I do not need to be all things for my daughter. It's fine if she sees that I have limits. It's fine if she learns that people have tastes and likes, and that they don’t always jibe with hers. It’s fine if papa is the one who wears the crown around this house.

In many ways, I am serving all of us by saying "no"...to imaginative play and to other things as well. I’m letting my husband have his own unique relationship with Claire. I’m showing my daughter I'm human, I'm teaching her some valuable things about being authentic in relationships, and I'm modeling how to respect her needs. I’m also protecting us all from mama burn-out.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that I can’t occasionally don a crown and hold a staff in the name of my daughter's continued development. It also means I don’t have to buy into my husband’s attempt at a snow job either.

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Check out this week's fab features:

Finding Ninee, My Future Dreams

Don't Chew on the Dinner Table, From the Mouths of Babes

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

My little one is old enough for little white lies. She's not the one doing the lying. I am (hangs head in shame at this now public confession).

All of the sudden, my baby is a person who can understand others, have conversations and express her needs...which means I have begun to lie to her. It certainly wasn't part of my plan. My lying seems to have developed out of expediency…

When she wants to visit the neighbor's daughter and I don't feel like it..."Jane's at school right now" (on a weekend).

When she wants to watch Elmo on my smartphone for the thousandth time..."The phone's not working" (someday, it's going to ring at the same time I'm expressing this falsehood).

When she asks for a cookie..."they're all gone" (not really, just not interested in a sugar high right now and/or more for me later).

When she wants to go to the indoor pool at my gym..."The pool is closed" (way too much hassle to take her to the pool every time she asks). 

I could go on. There are more. And I have an overarching rationalization for them all. It's just that I reprimand her and say "no" so much during the day…."stay out of the garbage", "the markers aren't for furniture", "you can't come up on me while I'm cooking"…on and on.

Why not make a few of the "no's" not about her or me? Why not blame some of the "no's" on an external source? She seems to like these other reasons better too, which means fewer power struggles and tantrums.

That's better for both of us, right? 

But I know there are insidious downsides to this philosophy too. When she's a bit older, she's going to catch on and I'm gonna get busted in a lie. Talk about undermining my own authority. I don't think I'm ready for that interaction. Eventually, I'm going to have to really tell her the truth, which is that "mama sometimes says no, and you have to listen whether you like it or not". I'm merely delaying the inevitability of this stoic life lesson. 

And, ethically, can you ever really get away with a lie? I'm not sure. 

I don't know if I'm strong enough to be take a more ethically pure stance on this issue right now, though. It seems so much easier to tell her what we both want to hear. 

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