The They Don’t Get me Syndrome

Everyone has felt it at some time, and probably at every age through their lift, that disconcerting feeling where you just want to stand up and scream “YOU JUST DON’T GET ME!”

These days we seem to have it in spades in our house.

The seven year old is dealing with it by being extremely irritable and snarky with everyone in her family.  As soon as she’s left our company for someone else, the attitude apparently does a complete three-sixty, or so I’ve been told.

The nine year old is trying so very hard to be more grown up.  She’s telling me how embarrassing it is to have the earliest bedtime of EVERYONE in school.  Unfortunately for her, I happen to be one of those parents who thinks staying up to ten or eleven pm is just too late for a nine year old who has to be up at six-thirty to go to daycare.  She is trying to act grown up, hang with the grown ups instead of the kids, and trying to convince me she’s in full blown puberty, even though she barely even knows what that is.  (That talk will come, but when I think she’s ready to understand and not be terrified by it).

And our new thing is pulling out crafts at bedtime.  When I point out there’s no point in starting it because its bedtime, I get the old “But, MO-OM, I just started it!” whine.  Unfortunately, for her I also happen to need to two hours after the kids are in bed to get shit done that I couldn’t get done while they’re up.

Like a broken record, the nine year old keeps telling me that I just don’t understand.  I don’t get it.  I don’t get her.  I don’t understand what she’s saying.  Etc,e tc, etc.

Unfortunately for her, I do get it, I understand, and I even get her.  I get both of them.  I’m also their mother, the maker and breaker of rules, and the one who has to be the badass making them obey the rules, go to bed when its time, eat healthy, and look after their needs over and above their wants.

And, unfortunately for Mom (me), there is nobody to get me.  The kids are too young to understand or be burdened with it.

I gave up being an independent person as well as my youth, looks and body, to have kids.  I didn’t have the opportunities for getting a degree and having the earning potential to support two kids and a daycare.  With daycare for two preschoolers costing more than I earned, I became a stay at home parent.

Flash forward, and due to changing financial circumstances in the house and the kids now being in school full time, I’ve had to go back to work.  On two incomes we’re making less than we had coming in before on just the one, plus we have the added expenses of daycare and increased gas costs.

After more than a year now working full time, nobody in the house seems to get that I’m not at home all day to pick up after everyone, clean the house, do the laundry, and make dinner.

Nobody gets that after working all day at an endlessly dull job, picking up kids and listening to them fight all the way home, and then trying to juggle them, cleaning, and making dinner single-handed is just exhausting both physically and spiritually.

Nobody gets what it feels like to work all day at a job, earning half the household income, and be the only one without spending money, without an allowance come payday.

Nobody gets the sacrifices you make as the mother, the things you do without, so they don’t have to.

Nobody gets what its like to try to buy all the groceries and other household necessities on the same old budget you’ve had for over a decade, despite adding two kids to the mix, and even though the cost of most of those things has doubled or tripled in that time.

Nobody gets what its like to listen to your kids telling you how unhappy they are, whining about all the things they want, knowing what they need that you can’t buy, their constant ‘I want’ demands, and knowing that you can’t even treat them to the occasional simple ice cream.

Nobody gets what it’s like to be the full time stay at home parent, the full time working parent, the hard-line rule enforcer, nobody’s friend, looking after everyone but yourself, sole-responsibility for cleaning up after everyone and doing everything for everyone, everyone’s reason for being unhappy and mad because you can’t let them have their way or everything they want, all at the same time.

After more than a year back to work full time the spouse still doesn’t get that you aren’t a stay at home parent anymore, you can’t just drop everything spur of the moment, take time off without notice, to do a last minute holiday or long weekend. Once again, you’re the bad parent and the reason for someone moping and sulking.

Nobody gets what its like to lose all independence, feel entirely dependent, and yet have the entire responsibility of the household maintenance and everyone’s happiness and well-being thrust on your shoulders while you are powerless to do anything but muddle through as best you can alone.

Nobody gets what it is to be the parent, alone and divided, working full time, house keeping full time, parenting  full time, no time for friends, nobody to talk to, no time for your self, the badass rule-keeper, hard-line budgeter, doing it all on your own parent.

They just don’t get that you feel their ‘they don’t get me’ syndrome times 100.

Except, of course, all the other single and single-married parents out there who are all feeling the same way.

Sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves that no matter how alone we feel, we aren’t alone.  There’s probably hundreds of thousands of us out there, all feeling the same things.