Bad Mother

This blog entry is officially for complaining about mothers and mothers-in-law. The kids have been sick the last two days, so my mother took care of them yesterday and Bernard’s mother took care of them today. I’ll preface this post by saying that the kids have the best grandparents and we really appreciate the fact that we were able to call them last minute to provide childcare so that neither Bernard nor I had to miss work. And since they do it for free, I guess a little criticism of my mothering ability (which is what I’m complaining about) is a small price to pay.

It all centers around the phenomenon that I call “sundowning”. You medical types know that this term usually refers to the delirium that Alzheimer or elderly hospitalized patients exhibit around evening time. For me, it refers to the daily meltdown that the kids have when I pick them up after work. Now, I know this happens to a lot of working mothers; the daycare teachers see it everyday. Eleanor and Miranda are very well-behaved at school and with the grandparents, but with me, from 5 pm until the bedtime routine, they start whining up a storm, and bawling when they don’t get their way. Yesterday, when I got home from work, the kids ran to me and started their usual whine-fest. My mother said, “You know, you really shouldn’t tolerate this behavior, or you’re going to be in real trouble when they’re older.”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling at my mother, because really, what am I supposed to do? Yell and scream at them? I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. In fact, my New Year’s resolution is all about not losing my temper during peak sundowning hours. All I can do is stay calm, ignore the whining, and not do what the kids want me to do until they ask me politely.

A few months ago, when my mother-in-law witnessed the sundowning, she said, “Hmm, they were fine with me all day. I don’t know why they’re acting like this.” Today, she said, “The reason they’re behaving like this is because you give them too much freedom.” I interpret this as, “You don’t set enough limits–that’s why they’re out-of-control.”

Now, I know I should just ignore these comments. The kids act up because they’ve been struggling to stay on their best behavior all day, and when they see me, they decompress. Nevertheless, I’ve been very sensitive to criticism since I was a child, and I can’t help but think, “Maybe I am doing something wrong.”

Here’s a list of all the ways I give the kids “too much freedom”. Either my mother or Bernard’s mother have commented on these things before:

1. I let them have as many toys in the bathtub as they want.
2. I let them empty the potty into the toilet.
3. I let them eject videos and put the videos they want to see into the VCR.
4. I let them make a mess while eating. They have no table manners.
5. I let them take off the lids of their sippy cups.
6. I let them do their own zippers, buckle the straps on their car seats and booster seats, and open the doors of the minivan.
7. I let them pick out their clothes everyday.
8. I let them play with the water in the sink and in the bathtub for as long as they want.

You can just see the grandmothers wincing as the kids spill a little urine on the floor, splash water or juice onto themselves, spill rice on the floor, pinch their fingers with the plastic buckle straps etc. I don’t know, maybe I do give them too much leeway. In part, this is because I don’t see them all day, and I don’t want my only interaction with them to be punitive. I guess all I can do is try to be consistent with what I allow them to do–and train them to be obedient little Chinese girls when they’re around the grandparents.