Maybe I should just not plan what to write during April. This is my third pass at a post for this week.
This afternoon, when we got back from speech therapy, we saw all of the neighborhood kids out playing. I convinced mine to come in to at least eat the chicken I’d bought for dinner on the way home before going out to join. I took a notebook out with the intention of sitting on the porch swing and writing, but felt guilty about being antisocial, so ended up chatting with the other moms on our block.
Illustration of a stressed-looking mom with two wailing kids pulling her in different directions.
Then some of the kids went in and the rest went to our backyard to play on our fort/play set. Having kids other than my own on our fort (or at our house) is weird. They do stuff that would never occur to my kids to do. Climbing up and sitting on the yardarm that holds up the swing, climbing into the tree next to the fort, climbing into the neighbor’s yard, which is what brought another mother and I back there. We made the neighbor’s yard off limits.
Well, the other mother made it off limits. I stood there, sheepishly wondering if we had liability insurance.
Thing is, I have no idea how to manage other people’s children. I don’t know what other mom’s rules might be. I don’t know what should be off limits. I can’t anticipate what they’re going to do. When I tell them to do something and they challenge me, I don’t know what to do. Little kids push me around…and I let them.
Because I don’t understand the social rules of being a mom. More than that, actually. I don’t know what the rules are.
Even being out front with the other moms was too much social for me. The mom’s are nice and I like them, even enjoyed talking to them, but I get overstimulated easily when there are that many people around. And I start to think about the summer and being out there every day.
I’m not sure I can do that.
And I know there have to be rules for our backyard: when other kids can be back there and what they’re allowed to take up on the fort and how long they’re allowed to stay. But I don’t know how to go about making those rules, let alone how to disseminate them. The whole thing makes me feel pretty pathetic.
It’s not just playing outside that I can’t handle. I get anxious when there are uninvited people in my house. Last weekend, Zoo Keeper came inside while I was watching TV and asked if he could bring his friend in for a tour of the house. I said yes, then retreated to my office, eventually donning headphones because I couldn’t take the noise of the kids playing.
Illustration of a blonde woman in a yellow polka dotted dress with a pink apron holding a cupcake with pink frosting.
Here’s the other thing: I want to be THAT mom. You know the one. Everyone calls her Mom and she feeds the whole neighborhood as all the kids come through her house. She’s always ready for company, welcoming everyone with a gracious smile.
But I’ll never be her. I can’t; I don’t have it in me. I’m too introverted. Too sensitive to noise and chaos. Too rigid in my ways. Too anxious. I’d be a much better grouchy old man yelling at the kids to get off my lawn.
I need to accept that I’m not a social mom, but I don’t know how to reconcile who I am with who I want to be. No, that’s not quite right. I don’t want to be her exactly; I want to be her for my kids. I want my kids to have a great social experience in the neighborhood. For our family’s sake, I don’t want the neighborhood thinking I’m weird and antisocial.
I have to figure out how to strike a balance between the social mom world and my own needs, but I can’t think when it’s going on and I’m overstimulated. I can’t think now, either, so I’m going to go watch TV with Sparky. Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Or not.
I’m weird and antisocial and I’m fine with that, but, like you, I want better or at least more sociable for my kid. I have endured play dates that made me want to run away and hide. I don’t go to ball games and things because noise plus annoying plus would rather be at home. here’s my teacher’s .02. Buy a piece of poster board. Write three or four rules on it. Get it laminated. Hang it up on the fort. Point it out the kids as they enter. Enforce the first infraction with, “I’m sorry, Billy, but you are not following the rules. Do xyz or I will have to ask you to go home now. This is your only warning.” It’s a script I use in teaching and it’s very effective in that it’s kind of don’t hate the player hate the game–rules are rules and you follow them or you go home. It’s cut and dried and easy. XOXO
Just kind of brainstorming specific rules: stay in the yard unless your mom or dad is with you. No climbing trees or on top of the fort. No breakables outside. Be kind.
You could come up with a list with your friend when you get together for coffee.
I allowed my kids to climb trees even though it made me nervous, but I wouldn’t allow other kids to do it on my property, unless their parent was there and was okay with it. Be kind covers a whole lot and you can call them on it and ban them from the yard like Lora said, if they aren’t.
I always had fantasies of being that kind of mother – warm, welcoming, baking cookies, the one where everyone wanted to hang out – but I actually secretly am glad that never came to pass because it would have made me crazy to have people over all the time.
I like Karen and Lora’s suggestions. The laminated poster board seems great. One thing that was always made clear to me when I was a kid, and that I see friends now trying to teach their kids, is that regardless of what kid is allowed to do at his/her home, when at someone else’s home, those parents’ make the rules.
Admittedly, some parents don’t adhere to this, but it’s still something I plan on sticking to as my nephew grows up. What’s okay in his home might not be okay in mine, and that’s alright so long as I’m compassionate in how I tell him about the difference (admittedly, no idea what will be different, but I’m sure something will).
Were I you, I think my rules would be something like:
1. Be kind and listen to QuirkyMom or QuirkyDad.
2. Stay in the yard unless your parent or babysitter is with you (I remember how much it hurt when people would act shocked that I had a babysitter with me instead of a stay-at-home parent, it made me get defiant about my mom’s job)
3. No climbing trees or on top of the fort.
4. Nothing breakable outside.
5. Ask before going into the house.
You know me, I’m super social. And yet, I can’t stand play dates and having to hang out with my neighbors and their kids. They’re totally nice, but like you, I don’t know what the rules are, and I still feel like I have to be present for my kids to support them (you know what I mean). The whole idea exhausts me. I want my kids to have the social experience, too, but after all the therapy appointments, school crap, and just trying to find silence in my day (yes, extroverts need that, too), I will often choose to keep us in the house. I don’t want to deal with other peoples’ expectations, when I’m exhausted trying to manage my own. When the days come where I’m able and ready to deal with it, then we’re out there. And some days, like you did, I choose to go out there and socialize with everyone else. Then, the next day, I give myself permission to say, “no – not today”, and try to be present to whatever is happening that moment – even if it involved taking a nap and keeping everyone in. As my kids have gotten older, I’m starting to pull back and evaluating things by the week or the month, rather than the day. I find it’s a more accurate picture of what our life is like, which means I’m a little less stressed out and worried about what I perceive my kids are getting/not getting in their lives. Hope that makes sense.