Things are making me crazy lately; I always get freaked out this time of year as I prepare to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. The organisation alone makes me feel like I have to be one of those mystical Hindu Gods with seventeen arms and possibly two heads. Luckily I do have help, but I still worry sick about the tiny details.
To make matters worse my daughter Ashley told me that whenever she does anything wrong she worries incessantly that I will be so disappointed with her and she tries not to tell me stuff and instead tells her dad. That makes me feel bad so we talked about it.
Am I that judgmental? Am I that scary?
So we discussed, when we were in Glastonbury Ashley unfolded a small pop up tent we bought as an addition to the big tent as we decided that because we never had a car to store luggage- a pop up tent was the answer to our problems…anyway Ashley popped up the tent and then promptly snapped it broke within two seconds of it opening.
I apparently sighed loudly…so loudly…she felt terrible about her mistake and used this incident as an example of my overwhelming disappointment at her.
I was astounded at her saying this, I did sigh loudly, I was fucked off she broke the thing within three seconds of opening it…but then I immediately assured her that it was all ok. The most important thing was to get it up and get the luggage inside as we were being flooded.
But that didn’t count…I sighed…and she felt crushed.
I have no idea how to fix this issue, I have told her that no matter what she does – she must tell me, I will be disappointed BUT I will lie, cheat and even kill to protect her and would do so willingly.
Being a mother is hard.
Husband is exempt from this psychological torture, he apparently doesn’t care what she does and reassures her that all is well and she can tell him anything. Does that make me Hitler?
My reckoning is this…husband has disappointed me so much in life and is used to making mistakes so Ashley and he have an empathy that I don’t.
I am wrong aren’t I?
I make loads of mistakes and I talk about them and discuss where and why I went wrong. I am sure I disappoint loads of people but I cant do everything right every time and I explained this to Ashley. I am not always disappointed in her, I am allowed to be either annoyed or shocked at something she did, but I will always stand by her.
I think somewhere along the line I have damaged her and I feel bad.
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