Reply to I am becoming a crabby old crone annoyed by children

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "I am becoming a crabby old crone annoyed by children"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I am 59 and had my only child daughter at 37. I was/am an anxious, micro-managing helicopter/snowplow mother who read every child development book, enrolled dd in every possible enrichment, wrote her college essays, etc.- you get the picture. Despite my anxiety, her childhood/young adulthood has provided me with a deep, abiding sense of joy and purpose.

So why do I now find young children and families mildly irritating? I smile at them benevolently at restaurants, in public, etc., because I feel that this is somehow the maternal response children should elicit from me. I offer to help when I see a Mom overwhelmed dragging a infant car seat and a toddler, open doors, etc. but internally I feel sort of judgy and critical.  Most children seem sort of rabbity, and not even cute, barring a few obviously adorable babies.  I know they are children and not really badly behaved, but I secretly think their parents are mismanaging things. Letting toddler children run behind them in a market parking lot or climbing on things that could be dangerous. I think a lot of parents are tattooed and trashy, but I don’t feel superior, just sad that I’ve become an old harridan.

I look into the future and semi-dread the prospect of grandchildren- loads of worry all over again. Is this because of my anxiety or because I had my child so late in life? My mother was the stereotypical loving Grandma in an apron baking cookies, dog on the couch, messy crafts type. Maybe I can shake of the internal ugly and emulate her when the time comes. Any one else adore their child but are decidedly meh about kids in general? [/quote]

Maybe your daughter won’t have kids or will have them at the same age you did which would be what 15 years from now? Why are you worried about grandchildren like they’re arriving any day now?

Ok, I get it you have anxiety. But this is something I think you can safely put off worrying about til if/when it actually happens. Lots of people don’t like young kids and don’t like others’ kids besides their own and judge others’ parenting...big deal. Maybe you’ll wind up loving being a grandmother and totally surprise yourself with how much you enjoy it. It’s certainly a lot easier being a grandparent than a parent as you can choose how much involvement you want to have and you don’t have to/get to make the decisions regarding parenting anymore. Just don’t be like my kids’ grandfather and be a hypercritical, overbearing know-it-all, not picky jerk to your grandkids because then they won’t like you and your daughter probably won’t either.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics