#i'm so sad i *love* purim and last purim was like. my last day of normal.

[matzobs]

[cw: I am a parent processing my emotions about my kid behaving inconsiderately and this post touches on intergenerational trauma, religious trauma, & transphobia, so that I don't direct it at my kid.]

My kid was inconsiderate at the Purim Spiel last night and I, being new at parenting, didn't realize making him sit in the lobby or the car while the rest of us had fun was an option, so I decided we should come home early.

We got home and his mom showed me that he wasn't sad, he was acting badly, and this morning I'm accepting that I got manipulated. He's 12, that'll happen.

My brain thinks that being manipulated is a problem, so it's trying to solve it. Here are some terrible ideas it's come up with:

* Control every minute of his life until he can "show me he is a considerate person" or some other nebulous achievement or I get tired of doing that

* He's grounded! Remove all opportunities for him to do the things that help him regulate himself, and just really make sure he knows for like six months that he was bad in every minute of every day.

* Spend this time before school really digging into how bad he made me feel. Make sure he really feels how shitty I feel, even though he can't comprehend it, and then tell him his mother is going to talk to him about it after school, and kick him out of the car.

* Just really be physically withholding for as long as I feel bad. No hugs. No I love yous. Just cold. So he knows I think he's an asshole in his bones.

*Don't ever take him to anything at the Temple ever again. Cancel his Bar Mitzvah. Tell him he doesn't appreciate the opportunity so he doesn't get to be Jewish.

* I could maliciously make him late for school today. I could just make him do all his chores and then drive him to school in my own time.

* I could make an "infographic" (like we have for his routines) listing the things he should be embarassed about.

Just out here rawdogging BPD and raising a child. I will not be doing any of that, thanks brain, you're so good at coming up with revenge plots and we should like write some fiction or channel it into art. None of those options are going to achieve the desired results, and all of them are pretty destructive, so let's just not.

I did wake him up a little early this morning to eat breakfast. It feels like I'm getting my little revenge because he doesn't get to lay in bed until the second alarm, but he does need to eat some breakfast because his tantrum last night was about how he didn't like dinner and he didn't end up eating it, so that's actually good parenting and I'm fine with that decision.

Baruch Hashem Adonei Eloheinu Malech Ha'olam thank you for giving me anger so that I could use it's fire change the world for the better and the ability to manage the emotion and direct it appropriately, and not at my child. And if you could possibly help my kid be like Ephraim and/or Rebekah that would be tops.

And his mom is going to talk to him about it after school, so all I have to do is manage the trauma response rising within me until I drop him off at school.

That's something parents never seem to talk about. I suppose my dad sort of was talking about it when he shouted "at least I don't hit you" at me while his hand was in the air. I don't think that's a constructive jumping off point for a conversation for a child tho. Here are some sources of pain that are informing this moment:

*I do not have good parenting models and this is a lot of work, and I am trying to get a promotion at work and finish a painting and otherwise live an adult life, and this is bullshit.

* When he behaves badly, the way he behaves badly is the way cis het adult men behave badly on dates. This is because cis het adult men never have to do better than a 12 year old, and then they went on to model this behavior to him.

*He's up now and he's love bombing me. Which I fucking loathe. It makes my skin crawl so bad. I know I have to teach him that this doesn't work, when you harm someone, you make amends, you don't love bomb, but I barely know the difference myself.

* As his father, it's my job to model different behavior, but I'm a butch lesbian and not a cis het man so maybe he won't see me as the role model he needs and he'll continue to follow the example of the cis het dudes.

* This is my first Temple, and it was my first Purim Spiel and I wanted to see it and shout at Haman and cheer on Esther, and I didn't get to, and there's 40 years of religious trauma behind this bullet point.

* Parenting in community is challenging in ways I don't yet fully understand and can't yet anticipate and I can feel the other parents being embarassed about things and I don't know if I'm supposed to be embarassed (I refuse to be? but maybe I am?). Before this guy moved in with me, I was cautiouly participating in the t4t kink mutual aid community, and the mores about judging one another and ourselves are just different.

* There's an absolute MILF who was flirting with me and we were going to sit next to each other and I didn't get to do that.

Ok.

All I have to do is get him to school untraumatized. There's less than 10 minutes before we leave. I can do this. I can do this.

it's already time to goooo! hooray I'm doing it!

#i can do this #parenting #trauma processing #personal #l'dor v'dor #intergenerational trauma #transphobia #religious trauma