133. These Children Will Have You Thinking You're a Bad Mother

Hey Doc,

These children will really have you questioning your entire motherhood résumé.

This summer, I left my kids in Trinidad with their grandparents while my husband and I stayed home to work on our businesses. And before you come for me, please understand the setup: camp, personal transportation, loving grandparents, extra help, someone cooking for them, and my mother making my son fry bake on request.

This child was living GOOD.

And yet, my son was crying, telling me he hated camp and wanted to come home. It was hard to hear, even when I had photographic evidence that he was perfectly happy when he wasn’t on the phone with me.

Then, a few weeks later, I told him we were coming to get them.

His response?

He didn’t want to come home.

Sir.

In this episode of Stethoscopes and Strollers, I’m talking about what happens when your child’s very real feelings start making you question whether you’ve made a terrible parenting decision.

Because your child can be sad.

They can miss you.

They can cry.

They can even be absolutely furious about a decision you made.

And none of those things automatically mean you made the wrong decision.

Sometimes being their mother means trusting what you know, allowing them to have their feelings, and resisting the urge to immediately fix their discomfort just so you can stop feeling guilty.

I’m sharing what this experience taught me about motherhood, guilt, and sticking with a decision even when your child is giving an Oscar-worthy performance suggesting you have personally ruined their life.

Spoiler: mine went from crying himself to sleep to asking when he could come back to Trinidad.

There’s hope for you, Doc. 😂

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Transcript

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 Hey, doc. I wanna talk about these, these children and the gaslighting that they do to make you feel like you're a bad mother. I wrote about this in one of my newsletters over the summer, and again, if you're not subscribed to my newsletter, please do so. Thank you very much But they will have you thinking you are a terrible mother, for real. My son had me thinking I was the worst mother in the world for leaving him and his sister in Trinidad. And you may be thinking, "Well, I agree with him. How could you do that?" Trust me, I've heard it all. Even, so funny, my husband, has this other contractor friend. And he was like, "Where are your kids?" " Trinidad." " You leave your- you left your kids in Trinidad?" Like even this man was like, "Uh, really?" So we're getting it from all sides, right? I know people think it's crazy. I don't care. It's fine. But he was crying all the time, throwing tantrums, saying he doesn't wanna go to camp, like all this stuff, and it was really frustrating. It was really upsetting because I had photographic evidence that he was actually enjoying himself all the other times that he wasn't talking to me or wasn't missing me. So it was like, I understand that you miss us, but I set this up so you would have fun, more fun than you would have had here in the middle of summer when your parents are trying to grow a business. I set up a camp for you, personal drivers to and from this camp, your own special nannies, a person to cook for you, all under the roof of your loving grandparents with a grandmother who was gonna make you fry bake whenever you wanted. And if you never had fry bake before, I'm, I'm so sorry for you. You should have it. It's like this fried dough that my mother makes, and it's just so amazing. My son always asks her for it, and even though he's not supposed to because she's old, she's not well, and she will make whatever he says, he will ask her for it because it's his favorite, and I don't blame him because it tastes really good. You have all of this stuff that I have been coordinating for months and paying for, and then you have the audacity to tell me that you want to come home, and you don't like camp and all this stuff. And like it was starting to get to me. I wasn't gonna bring him back, because I had my goal in mind, but it was really difficult. Fast-forward to a couple days ago, and this child looks to tell me he does not want to come back. I said, "Asani, I am coming for y'all next week Saturday." He's like, "Yeah, no, I don't, I don't wanna come home." I was like, "You have to be kidding me." Like, are you for real right now? I mean, I'm happy. I'm, I'm very happy. But I was just like, yeah, you could have been enjoying all of your time instead of complaining. You could have been enjoying yourself from day one all day and not telling yourself that you were not having fun and working yourself up Like, I was just so blown. And then he's like, "No, okay, okay. I'll come back home, but can we come back after Christmas or for Christmas?" I was like, "Yes, Asani, sure. Whatever. Whatever, child." So all this to say, don't let these children gaslight you into thinking that you're a bad mother. I guarantee you, you are not. You are doing the best that you can with the information that you have. And honestly, if you're not, do better. But I am giving you the benefit of the doubt because I know your life, I know you, and I know you're doing the best that you can, but they will really have you thinking that you're a bad person and a bad mother. And I just wanna tell you, you're not. Stick it out. Stick it out, and they will come back saying, "Oh, Mommy, you're the best. You are the best." Ask any mother with older children, and she'll tell you how guilty she felt and how her children have no, no clue. And I'm sure somebody will find some daughter or son who's like, "Yeah, my mother was terrible." I'm not talking about those people, right? Like I said, I know you, doc. You are a good person. You are a good mother, and you are doing the best that you can for your children, even if they don't like it. They will be fine. Crying is fine. It's a normal emotion. That's what I tell my son. It's like, you could be sad. That's fine. That's normal, and it's not the end of the world. So I just wanted to share that with you, that My son went from crying himself to sleep to, "I don't wanna come home." So there's hope, there's hope for you. Okay? Don't let them, don't let them manipulate you because they will. All right, doc? I will see you on the next episode of Stethoscopes and Strollers.