parenting through limbo (beyond the reach of advice and home-based good intentions)

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.