Guilty, of love in the first degree...

Love.

'Love is a many splendid thing,
Love lifts us up where we belong,
All you need is love.'

Ewan MacGregor got it right. But with ultimate love comes ultimate guilt. Feeling guilty of getting it all very, very wrong.

And the mother guilt we pass down onto our children, from our mothers and their mothers and every other parent in the known history of the known universe has given it all to their off-spring and I'm feeling ALL of it, from ALL of them, EVER, ALL of the time because what if I'm messing him up? What if the Bean turns out ultimately crap without any sense of respect for life and love and people and feelings and family, without any sense of being a good man, without any sense of direction?

We went swimming today with a good friend of mine who is 6 months pregnant and already so much more relaxed about things than I ever was, have been, potentially will be. I have my moments of calm and my moments of content and I LOVE THEM, but at the end of the day, I'm a worrier. This has also been passed down so graciously from my fore-father (yes, singular... Thanks Dad).

This friend told me to just let the Bean swing into the pool from the pool steps because he's only going to hurt himself once. I've got to let him hurt himself. I was never going to be one of 'those' mothers. The ones that worry about their kids being dirty or sick or hurt. I'm certainly not a helicopter at the park mother, I let him fall of slides and swings and light houses all the time. In fact, just this afternoon he scraped his little spunky face because he fell off the climb-y stairs thing and I made a joke out of it. He wasn't really hurt, I wobbled his legs to check it they were broken. Then I wobbled his arms to check if they were aslo broken. By the time I tickled his tummy and his back in search of broken bits he was giggling and fine. But at the pool I'm a shouter. A 'Get Back Over Here Jelly BEAN', type mother. I try to make him stop throwing stuff. I try to make him eat his vegetables. I have to do homework while he hangs out with himself.

I don't really let him eat many lollies. Or chocolate. Or Ice Cream.

And I'm tired of making sure I'm always saying the right thing because sometimes, just sometimes, a good Swear Fest Vent 2010 can go a long way to making one feel better about the injustices of one's world/day/job/life/frustrating situation at hand.

And I feel so guilty when I get it wrong. And when other people seem to be getting it right.

And I don't want the responsibility, sometimes. Just sometimes.

Because I don't have to justify myself. I don't need to explain how I live my life to anybody. I don't need anyone's approval of my parenting skills or lack, accordingly, thereof. But at the end of his teenage years, when I'm both a teacher of teenagers and a parent of a teenager I know how many judgments will have come my way. He will be a teenage boy. He will drive everyone around him to near insanity. Wait, he'll, one day, BE IN YEAR 9!

And that worries me. This whole gig. This parenting deal.

Sometimes, it's just too hard. And I don't know what the fuck to do.


Things The Bean has said:

1. I walk into the lounge room and all of the cushions from the couch are all on the floor.

TB: Hi Mama, I'm a froggy. And I've hopped and hopped onto all these Lilly Pats.
Me: Hi Froggy.
TB: No, my name is Munjel The Frog.

2. *Sounds of flushing toilet*

Me: Did you just do some poos?
TB: No but there was a thing on the ground and I put it in the toilet and closed the lid and I pressed the button and now it's gone away!

*flashes me the proudest grin EVER*

(I Remember the purple paper clip I'd seen on the floor earlier but couldn't be bollocksed bending down to pick it up)
Me: Was the thing purple?
TB: Yup.
Me: Oh, you could have just given it to me babe, it didn't need to get flushed down the toilet.
TB: No Mama, it was yucky!

3. Driving past the local small plane/helicopter airfield, The Bean points out some planes with rotar blades on the front.
TB: Mama, Look at those heli-planes!