My oldest daughter and I talk a lot. We talk about useless things and important things, but it's talking.
I get a really bad mom on sometimes, and some people may know how this goes. You get wrapped up in work or chores or bills, and you begin to forget your mom job. I usually get my bad mom on when I'm cleaning, and I have a tendency to yell. I usually don't communicate very much when I do this — just a yell to "get off my clean floors with those shoes" or something to that effect.
I do return to normal quite quickly though, and the jabber-talk continues. I have to say that my oldest daughter is very well adapted to life in my house and can swing a conversational segue from bad to great in seconds.
Unfortunately there are moms out there that don't "click back" to their mom job, and this saddens me. Children need so much more from us than a house, food and a bed. They need our time — not time in front of the television or video games. They need our time to walk them outside and show them an oak leaf changing colours in the season, and how you can dry it and flatten it in the pages of a book.
They need our expertise — not that we are expert parents, but we are grown human animals that follow societal behaviours. We need to teach them how to eat properly at a table, without shoveling food in their faces and how to properly greet a stranger. These are simple human learned behaviours that just aren't taught anymore.
Children need compassion, not fistfuls of discipline and constant criticism. The mother standing in line at the grocery store with the death grip on the toddlers arm will never become a role model for that child, but she will turn into a person that the child will learn to fear and possibly hate. As a mom, I would be heartbroken if I had taught my own child to hate me.
I get a real rage on when I see those types of moms. The "deadbeat" dad has had all our attention for years and there are organizations and websites dedicated to shaming these men into becoming a better parent, but why do we stop with them? Why do we not stand up as a family of human animals and speak up for one of our own when we see the horrible moms behave like this? Why do we assume that the mom is in the right?
I talk to my daughter about the good, the bad and the ugly. I do not censor day-to-day life for her, but she has a shoulder to lean on, an ear to whisper her secrets to, and an arm around her when I am proud of her. She recently asked me why some moms are like that ... and she knows the answers.
