I like to think I know better, but I can’t resist reading news articles and facebook memes about health and parenting. They're mostly full of sensible caring bossiness: nurture
your children, let them have free time, don’t shout at them, don’t feed them
sugar/dye/meat/nitrites/white bread/things that have touched plastic/anything
not organic/tomato products in cans, encourage free-thinking/sharing/community,
make sure they sleep enough, limit screen time for kids and parents, take
advantage of that village to raise them. Let them work out their own conflicts-
they need to learn how to do that for themselves, don’t tell them “no” too
much/ever, don’t praise them too much, keep your sense of humor. There is also my own conscience reminding me
not to give in to whining, to set reasonable and clear limits, to demonstrate
and request respect for people/animals/plants/etc. I read the ones, too, that tell me to lighten
up on myself, that this full-time parenting thing is hard and it’s not the end
of the world if I let a few little negative thoughts in. In a stable home-based world I’m more about
moderation in everything than fanatical devotion to any one school of parenting,
so I make fun of it all and believe it all too.
I emptied out our house in June- selling, donating, storing,
shipping, and throwing away whatever didn’t fit in our minivan. We had a
see-you-later party in our neighborhood and two days later drove north over the
Golden Gate Bridge, then turned east towards Vermont. The kids and I crossed
the country in ten days, staying in motels, camping cabins, and at the houses
of friends. I tried to make reservations where there were pools, so the kids
could use up as much energy as they could in the water after sitting most of
the day in the van.
There was a lot more crap-eating on that drive than we had
done in the previous year and a half in San Francisco- Happy Meals, candy,
soda, sugar, only the very occasional vegetable that wasn’t fried. There was a lot of appeasement. They watched
videos until the battery ran out and then we unplugged the GPS so they could
plug the DVD player in and watch more.
When we got to that day’s destination I let them turn on Cartoon Network
for half an hour before the pool so I could unwind, checking my e-mail on the
hotel wifi. And I shouted at them, probably daily- sometimes at the end of the
day when we were all tired, hungry, and frazzled and they couldn’t stop trying
to aggravate each other, and even a couple of times as we hurtled down the interstate
at 85 miles per hour.
Driving 3600 miles with three kids might seem like a feat of
something- Patience? Endurance? Family harmony? Determination? None of those
and all of them, in moments. Whatever it was, it bore little relation to all
the advice I listed at the beginning of this post. Looking back at it now, despite all the junk
food, sleep deprivation, hours of sitting still, and grouchiness, it still seems
like an enviable, easier stage in this summer’s odyssey. It really was a great trip- driving through
vast uninhabitable spaces of Nevada and Utah somehow just what I needed after
leaving our beloved neighborhood in San Francisco. We met up with old friends
or family at nearly every stop, some of whom had children to play with. We
packed a bike, hula hoops, and a ripstick so there would be no resting at the rest
stops. We started the trip with the natural beauty of Lake Tahoe on the first
day and then took in Niagara Falls on our last night, reconnecting with friends
at both stops.
Three kids and I are too many to comfortably stay in my
parents’ small house for more than a few days.
We dropped off one kid at camp after a few days and then continued south
to spend the week visiting friends, messing around in lakes, going to
movies. The plan was to pick him up
after his two weeks there, scrub him down, and get on a plane a couple of days
later to fly to our new home in Qatar, joining my husband who had been there
since the end of May.
It’s challenging to parent the way I want to when I am
staying in other people’s houses.
Generally we try to stick by whatever house rules are in force, but
there are always situations in which I let something happen that turns out to
be inappropriate or squash a game that the kids there play all the time. I
become hyper-vigilant about heading off an outburst that in my own house I
might let explode so we could work all the way through it and out the other
side. I feel more responsible for my children’s manners or lack thereof but
also sensitive to seeming like I’m too hard on them or expect too much or
conversely, that I’m giving in to their every demand.
Just before we went to get my son from camp, my husband
informed me that our tickets could take 4-6 more weeks to arrange. After the
panic, rage, frustration, and self-pity died down I put it out to my FB
community for advice. A friend most
generously offered her house to us for as long as we needed it. She and her family live elsewhere so we
wouldn’t have to worry about crowding them.
The house is near where I went to college and grad school so it’s
familiar territory. We moved there a few
days later and immediately felt better. It wasn’t that the bickering and
shouting stopped entirely but suddenly we had the space to spread out a little
and create our own routines, without worrying how they would mesh with or
disrupt those of people in whose home we were staying. Every morning we’d eat breakfast and then
hold a family meeting to decide what to do with the day. After we cleaned up, we’d head out to cool
off in swimming holes, take hikes, hang out at the library, explore back
roads. We stayed there for a week, took
a trip to visit friends, came back for another week.
Eventually, as expected, everything happened at once and
somehow we were ready- within the space of a few days we got tickets, sold the
van, made last-minute purchases, pulled together an early birthday party, and
then got on a plane to Doha.
Since we’ve arrived we’ve been living in our temporary home,
a two-bedroom suite. In the kids’ room
their beds are lined up, sides touching.
It’s hotter here than anywhere my kids have ever been, so my usual
method of getting my bearings in a new country, to take long walks, is just not
doable with them no matter how much water we pack. Like I did on our trip across the country
we’re swimming the kids in the pool for a few hours every day, once the sun
goes behind a building. While we’re still jetlagged and culture shocked and
don’t know our way around they are probably spending too much time playing
fruit ninja on the ipad, but they’re also enjoying time with their dad who has
the week off, wrestling in the pool with him, learning to play rummy.
Ever since we started this transition, when my husband
accepted this job offer, I’ve been waiting for the lessons, whatever they may
be. A couple of weeks ago it was starting to seem that whatever I would gain
from the experience would not make up for having repeatedly made parenting
choices I wasn’t happy with. Suddenly now, simply no longer being the sole parent to
my kids is enough for me to start to reflect on what I have absorbed and
realize that we may still manage to come out ahead. We only just got here, there is a lot of
settling in to do, so much still to learn from this past summer
and adventures to come.
