By: Christine Dalton, MSSW, CSW
Since I started teaching parenting classes back in the spring of 2007, I often find myself observing parent/child interactions whenever possible. My goal as a teacher is to help parents and make life easier for them and their child. What are the struggles? As your child gets older, you forget the terrible twos and sometimes you try to remember the days before they could talk. The stories I am about to tell are from Chicago, so sit back, take a deep sigh of relief as we talk about people we don’t know. LOL
I need to paint a picture for you. A picture so vivid that your muscles start to tighten and your hand goes over your mouth while you’re thinking, “No he did not!” I recently went to Chicago for Labor Day weekend with my daughter and my cousin. It was a rainy Sunday and we decided to take it indoors and head to the Shedd Aquarium. It was hot, humid, my hair getting bigger by the minute and people were sticky. I know that because that’s how crowded it was in there. We were trying to make our way to the oceanarium section and we pass a man, probably mid 30s. He’s struggling a little and he’s holding a young child– bareley holding a young child. He also has a child attached to either side of him. I would guess all under the age of five. As he passes or squeezes by us he looks deep into my cousin’s eyes and says, “This stress is unbearable!” and he continues on. You could hear faint little voices saying, “Daddy I’m hungry, Daddy I need to poop, Daddy I’m tired.”
We are now in the oceanarium and for those of you who have been before you know it looks like a forest with big, green trees and huge rocks surrounding a giant pool in the middle. BOOM! BOOM! Everyone freezes. I look up and a decent size boulder is rolling down one of the steep hills and at the top of that hill is a little boy with a mighty big grin. He is wearing the Urkel expression, “Did I do that?!” and an eerie silence comes over the crowd as every parent in the room checks to make sure their child was not part of this avalanche. You could actually see the relief flood their faces when they were assured their little ones were in check. Then you see him, DAD, panic stricken, deciding what to do… save the boy, stop the boulder, too late the boulder is picking up momentum and he goes for the little boy. No one was hurt during the process of this story, except for maybe the boulder. It was all over in a matter of minutes and I thought, “This stress is unbearable!”
If you are a parent, you are not alone. Sometimes in life the stress can seem unbearable. So why then do we put ourselves through it all, when your two-year-old won’t even remember? I will tell you why– because we all love our children. No matter what age, how little or big, we want them to experience everything life has to offer. We want pictures of it all. We want to share those moments with our friends and family on Facebook and Twitter. We want to talk about it at their wedding. I don’t have any specific technique to share with you or a quick fix this time. I just wanted you all to know that sometimes the stress is unbearable but we will all get through it together.
And when all else fails, post it on Facebook.
Status Update: My three year old just climbed a wall and pushed a fake boulder down into a crowd full of people. Don’t you wish your baby was strong like mine?!
Or, you can ask us at Owensboro Parent! We would like to hear from you! If you have a specific parenting “issue” that you would like addressed or just a question you might need advice on we want to help!
Please email your questions to me at
[email protected]. Your question just might be answered in the next issue.