Ooooh boy. I commented on AHP's portal post that I'm 48 and feel like I'm JUST on the cusp of coming through it. My oldest is a senior in high school, and just went and bought his own Halloween costume with his friends (a $45 Squid Game situation, lol). My college kid is far away and while she does require consultation and money, it's much different energy than all those logistics. And my husband and I go out to our favorite bar on Halloween and get candy corn jello shots, which are actually TASTY.
I'm guess what I'm trying to say is that it gets better.
I follow an Instagram account that roasts teens and the owners’ kids just left for college and they were talking about how much they miss them and the house feels so empty. it’s like how do I get that foresight to cherish this stage and not just be annoyed by it?
I mean, I don't know about that for me. I think part of it is being annoyed by it, and then appreciating them after they leave. I miss my college kid, but when she's home it's still annoying to deal with the mess and drama. We definitely have a better relationship now that she lives somewhere else most of the time, and I think that's okay.
That makes me feel better. I was thinking about signing my nine-year-old up for sleep away summer camp less so he can have a great experience and more so we can have a couple days of quiet and that seemed incorrect.
Send your son to sleep away camp without guilt. It's a good learning experience about independence for both kids and parents. A week of freedom (No finding a babysitter! Wine and cheese for dinner!) is amazing after managing a family. My youngest is now a high school senior, so I'm both excited and nervous about what that means for me. Glad I got some glimpses of it over the years.
DO IT! My daughter has gone to sleep away camp for a week the last two summers (the summers of age 9 and 10) and is looking forward to it again this year. I'd let her go longer if it wasn't so flipping expensive. I told my husband this past summer that the week she was gone I wasn't going to do any organized dinners--we could scrounge our own, make our own, order out together or alone, eat cheez-its from the box. Did some of all those things and it was GLORIOUS.
This thread has convinced me to do it! His brother was a year older than he was when he first did it but younger siblings are emotionally older than the firstborns (I just made that up)
Yes! Do it! It's so great for everyone. My kids both went for years and loved it so much they became counselors (gone all summer and making money, win win!). It's like a little step of independence that's really helpful for them. My daughter went to a camp that was held in a college dorm, so she felt like she had a taste of college as well in middle and high school. We missed them more than they missed us, which was also good for everyone, haha.
Send him! My mom started sending my sister and I the summer after third grade, and my kid wasn’t ready then, which was good bc it was the first COVID summer, but she started trying it the next summer, and it took some trying to find the right fit, but now everyone is excited for her to be gone for a month next summer.
I’m having the double whammy of massive kid needs RIGHT when all my friends and acquaintances from college are starting to capital-M “Make It.” (Like C-suite of a Fortune 500, federal judge, prosecuting the former president, “Make It.”) Meanwhile, I can barely hold it together on a “reduced schedule” at my entirely unimpressive mid tier gig, because it is a full time job making sure my kid gets the schooling he deserves and the therapy he needs. (schlepping him to said appointments is a SECOND full time job that my husband gets to do. ) All I can do is hope that it gets easier as he gets older.
I don't know how old your kiddo is, but I have two Autistic kids (and I'm in a community of moms with high need kids) and I promise that even if it doesn't get better, it will get easier. Our socieity is not set up to support caregiving or disability in any major way and that's fucked and on them and not you. <3
I have a 7yo and we have just entered this time of her having things and opinions and plans for herself and it is EXTREME bullshit!! I did not love the boredom of being the mom of a very tiny child, but i did like the circular predictability of it where almost every day was identical with a tiny wrinkle of activity and weather. I am exhausted by the now that we are just entering into. I do love her and want her to grow into an independent person but also I hate it, no thank you.
But also, I urge all of you to find a non-work/non-family FUN fulfilling thing for you (reading novels, sewing, woodworking, pub trivia, whatever) and carve regular time out for it and protect it like your kid’s protect the dumb fucking toys they get at birthday parties. If they get stuff for them, you get stuff for you! Plus!! You are teaching them to be adults who take time for themselves and save them for the self-sacrificing middle class (mostly) white parenting trap we have all arrived at.
Note: i guess you could include your spouse or partner if you want.
Holy shit, I feel this so much. I have been struggling with dwindling ambition/motivation over the past year and I keep thinking, "What is wrong with me?" But yes, I am also insanely busy with the minutiae of raising two tweens with a mostly full-time job and a husband who is out of the house 12 hours a day 4x a week. Maybe that's why...... Anyway, thanks for putting things to into perspective. I will read this over and over again.
Sometimes I think about when my kids are grown and possibly at the stage of thinking about starting their own families, and what I would tell them/their partners about what you could realistically expect from yourself at that time of life and/or what type of help you may need if you can get it.
Although I also hope I’m wise enough to just keep my mouth shut, and support them.
I’m a few years past the “portal,” but I remember feeling similar. Part of it might be transitioning to being a parent of older kids. Instead of freeing up more time, the work shifted to more monotonous chores—more laundry, dishes, and places to be. And instead of oxytocin-inducing toddler hugs, I got cortisol-inducing older-kid sass.
What helped me was what you’re doing: expressing the bad feelings and sharing with others. Gradually, I shifted my expectations. I’ve realized most have-to’s really aren’t. Now, I just accept I’m going to disappoint someone—but I’m not going to take responsibility if it’s for something someone else should’ve remembered. I’ve let go of the idea that everything in life can be “managed.”
I'm full-on in the portal (peri-menopause, feeling guilty about my lack of job ambition, solo caring for challenging little kid, hormonal tween, and aging parents) and one thing I'm trying to learn is to accept that I'm going to disappoint someone - but that someone DOES NOT HAVE TO BE ME. Sometimes I can do something I know will disappoint someone else, even someone I am responsible for taking care of, but be the right thing for me, and that is okay.
I was trying to think of a third example of a cartoon mom. I contemplated Lois from family guy, but she has curves and wears a button down shirt. Too sexy.
Because I still read the comics in my local paper, I'd like to suggest that the mom in Zits and the mom in Baby Blues also fit the bill.....and I laughed really hard at this section of the newsletter.
I burst out laughing at this part of the newsletter. Reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes again w/kid and I can’t believe what a little butt Calvin is and how much I empathize with his mom
Oct 27, 2023·edited Oct 27, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
I realized it's not a midlife crisis, but crisis in midlife. There is so much to do, so little time, and pressure to do more. Where that pressure is from? I don't know, but lately the answer to that voice that is telling me to do more is, NOPE!
Right now I am in a constant state of transition. My oldest is applying to colleges, my youngest is inserting her independence, my parents have slowed down significantly and their peers have also slowed down, gotten sick, or died. Conversation with my peers have shifted from taking care of kids to taking care of parents or our new and surprising ailments. Don't get me started on full on menopause (or rather I can't because I forgot what I was going to say.) I've been back to full time work for five years now and well...meh. I love what I do, but unlike the younger me, I have no desire to do more. I just want to "be" in peace. Once again I'm at that point where I realize I have to actualize the life I am living , rather than the life I thought I I should be living. Embracing my mundane, mediocre self is so freeing, and girl I am embracing it wholeheartedly. No, I am not out there doing this and that, my lazy ass is home, parked on my couch, eating cookies with my husband while watching "Stranger Things" for the umpteenth time. Leave me alone!
In the wise words of Antonio Salieri in the closing scene of the film Amadeus: Mediocrities everywhere... I absolve you... I absolve you...
I was just talking to a friend who is on month 11 of no period and I was rooting for her to make it the full 12 months. i'd be so mad to get that far just for one stupid little missing egg to show up.
Last year I completely accepted "meh" re: my job-job. I have two volunteer gigs that I truly love and fulfill me and make me happy. I thought about transitioning from the industry I work in now (publishing) to the one in which I volunteer (non-profit/fundraising) and decided to side with the devil I know. I will just, as you say, "be" in peace at my job and not ruin the things I get enjoyment out of that would be ruined by metrics and deliverables and measurables and (shudder) annual performance assessments.
Damn, this resonates! I am reluctant to admit this but *sometimes* I kinda miss the lock down stage of 2020 (not all the death and disease obvi!). But Phew, a time when we didn’t have birthday parties and after school clubs, and play dates, and work happy hours and sports stuff. It was a simpler time 🤪
Yes to the homework help, BTW! I never knew how much of my own school performance anxiety would get stirred up by overseeing my kid's homework. It's PAINFUL.
I'm all over the map. Our daughter is in her freshman year of college -- six hours away, but obviously I'm still needed for my wallet and answering the important questions like, "should I wear leggings today?" Our son is in second grade and I still haven't bothered teaching him how to tie his shoes. So, parenting whiplash!
I coach his soccer team, so that's two evening a week, plus Saturday games. Piano lessons. Church stuff. My non-negotiable spin class twice a week. Full-time job, plus a consulting gig. Got a weird family estrangement thing going on that I'm sometimes confused about and sometimes grateful for taking up valuable brain space.
I don't know. I'm filling my days with family related things, junk food Amazon Prime ebooks, work, and working out. I'm feeling myself for the first time in forever, so I'm kind of leaning in to that, as shallow and clutching on to youth as that may seem? I wore a (tasteful!) bodycon dress to the office this week. I'm 41 and I might start training for a half-marathon just because. Definitely midlife crisis, right?
My second grader also doesn't know how to tie his shoes (because all his shoes are Velcro) or ride a bike (because he has a scooter) and I need someone to convince me why I need to force this issue!
I mean if you don't have something to be low key worried about are you even alive?? And for bigger kids you can get away with shoes with hidden stretchy laces.
I do know someone who outsourced teaching their kid to ride a bike to some sort of camp. I don't know how I feel about that--probably genius, but then they missed out on the experience of their husband hollering at their kid crying on the sidewalk, and why would you want to skip that precious memory?
My kid did learn to ride a bike camp and she still hated it, and a teenage counselor at circus camp taught shoe tying bc the other option was tying shoes for the child because they required tie shoes at the camp. Just now in seventh grade she really got the hang of shoe tying, from another kid.
I think they are good skills, but don’t have a deadline to learn them.
I was talking about this with the OTs I was interviewing. I think anything where a kid has to mirror you is hard and with shoe tying, there are so many ways to do it! And also usually shoe tying is done in a "come on lets go!!" situation so it's hard to teach without getting stressed.
My second grader also cannot tie shoes because velcro and we have never attempted to teach her!! I have a hard time finding the urgency to teach her.
She also can’t ride a bike without training wheels. We sent her to bike camp and it did not succeed. She just is absolutely not ok with the wiggles you get as you get to balanced and moving and has decided she does not have to be ok with it or need to ride a bike.
I'm a teen services librarian, and run a craft night once a month -- it's really noticeable how huge a span there is in fine motor skills. Like, night and day between kids of the same age and it *feels* like this is new compared to the dark ages of the early 1990s, but that's probably not true.
Grade SIX and won't learn to tie shoes. Refuses Somehow brought home multiple items he hand-crafted in wood shops class. Playing clarinet in band class. Why are they like this.
Sounds more Midlife Badass than midlife crisis to me. I think it’s a victory that you’re like, fuck all this I need to do some things by myself (and I totes deserve to).
Honestly, thank you for saying that! I feel programmed to say I'm being selfish, but I'm not! No longer midlife crisis -- I'll call it my midlife breakthrough.
It is a very real stage of life: need to get my oldest driving (driving well enough that the stress of him driving isn’t more than the stress of me driving him everywhere) before I can no longer ask my parents to help with driving. But also, realizing having a new driver doesn’t help that much if he doesn’t have a vehicle. Because I GUARANTEE the blowups we will have when he takes one of our cars when we have somewhere to be, and leaves his garbage and sports stuff festering in it?!?! WWIII. Christ, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
I feel your pain. My teen is 40 hours of drive time away from getting her license and we cannot get it done. However, if she got her license it would alleviate the intensity of the schedule. It's a vicious cycle.
We finally bought a cheap car from a friend for our 18 year old to use this year, and it is life-changing in how much time I have back. Yes I track him obsessively on Find my iphone still. But my car is just filled with MY trash now.
Ahhhhh, I just re-signed up for therapy because my shoes are dropping left and right - my mom died, I turned 50, my kids are teens who constantly need to be in 2 different places at ALL times, and I have to work full time so they can be 2 different places indulging their different interests at all times and I feel like no one, NO ONE, is getting the best of me, including me. Yay middle age.
I don't know what season I'm in, but I know that it involves throwing away the fundraiser catalogs they keep sending my kid home with. And ignoring the multiple themed dress-up days for conference week. And the BOOK FAIR WALLET, FFS, WHY? We'll just go to Barnes & Noble on the weekend, it's all too much.
Another thing I think about in regards to creativity is that so much of my early impulses were about wanting to be heard. Now I have a partner that makes me feel heard, and most of my creative energy is used trying to find workarounds to two brilliant, willfull children. So lower motivation plus more energy being channeled elsewhere...it makes sense that I'm not writing, I think. As much as I might want to. Very mid indeed. haha
I still have my pesky ambition but also find it difficult to balance my big plans and ideas with all the little bullshit I have to deal with daily--Halloween, school fall festival, homework, dentist, life etc etc etc. But ALSO, my kids do not do extra curriculars, not really, and I am so relieved that they don't do sports. I hate sports! That bullshit asks entirely too much of the parents to make happen. UGH NOPE.
today my thing is thinking angrily "I should just stop trying to have a job!! what's the point!!!" while I throw away a rotten apple core in my 8 year old's bedroom. That'll show them.
Ha ha yes! Though, if I did that, my almost 8 year old would either make the apple core into a demented baby doll and/or art piece that could never be discarded, or sob for an hour about how I didn't love her as much as her brothers and that's why I trashed her room!
I very much resonate with "driving season" because I keep thinking "I am in cold and flu season." I have a 9-year-old and a (constantly snotty nosed and coughing) 3-year-old and am still getting used to the fact that this means double the life management for kids. Like, "ohhh, you, younger child, also need to go to the doctor? And have speech therapy? And bring things for show and tell? And learn to swim? And have friends whose birthday parties you attend every goddamn weekend?" I think the plus side of my own portal is that I've become far more realistic about what's feasible for us to manage and what we let go of or opt out of. I've also become more realistic about work and what it looks like right now. I remain driven but am also far more content in my current role - because it's one that enables my life to be decently feasible and flexible - than I would have been in the past.
Ooooh boy. I commented on AHP's portal post that I'm 48 and feel like I'm JUST on the cusp of coming through it. My oldest is a senior in high school, and just went and bought his own Halloween costume with his friends (a $45 Squid Game situation, lol). My college kid is far away and while she does require consultation and money, it's much different energy than all those logistics. And my husband and I go out to our favorite bar on Halloween and get candy corn jello shots, which are actually TASTY.
I'm guess what I'm trying to say is that it gets better.
I follow an Instagram account that roasts teens and the owners’ kids just left for college and they were talking about how much they miss them and the house feels so empty. it’s like how do I get that foresight to cherish this stage and not just be annoyed by it?
I mean, I don't know about that for me. I think part of it is being annoyed by it, and then appreciating them after they leave. I miss my college kid, but when she's home it's still annoying to deal with the mess and drama. We definitely have a better relationship now that she lives somewhere else most of the time, and I think that's okay.
That makes me feel better. I was thinking about signing my nine-year-old up for sleep away summer camp less so he can have a great experience and more so we can have a couple days of quiet and that seemed incorrect.
Send your son to sleep away camp without guilt. It's a good learning experience about independence for both kids and parents. A week of freedom (No finding a babysitter! Wine and cheese for dinner!) is amazing after managing a family. My youngest is now a high school senior, so I'm both excited and nervous about what that means for me. Glad I got some glimpses of it over the years.
DO IT! My daughter has gone to sleep away camp for a week the last two summers (the summers of age 9 and 10) and is looking forward to it again this year. I'd let her go longer if it wasn't so flipping expensive. I told my husband this past summer that the week she was gone I wasn't going to do any organized dinners--we could scrounge our own, make our own, order out together or alone, eat cheez-its from the box. Did some of all those things and it was GLORIOUS.
This thread has convinced me to do it! His brother was a year older than he was when he first did it but younger siblings are emotionally older than the firstborns (I just made that up)
Yes! Do it! It's so great for everyone. My kids both went for years and loved it so much they became counselors (gone all summer and making money, win win!). It's like a little step of independence that's really helpful for them. My daughter went to a camp that was held in a college dorm, so she felt like she had a taste of college as well in middle and high school. We missed them more than they missed us, which was also good for everyone, haha.
Send him! My mom started sending my sister and I the summer after third grade, and my kid wasn’t ready then, which was good bc it was the first COVID summer, but she started trying it the next summer, and it took some trying to find the right fit, but now everyone is excited for her to be gone for a month next summer.
Candy. Corn. Jello. Shots. Thank you. I’m just going to sit with that for a while. One day I can hope to find my own!
Let them be a beacon of hope for parents everywhere! 🙏🏽
I’m having the double whammy of massive kid needs RIGHT when all my friends and acquaintances from college are starting to capital-M “Make It.” (Like C-suite of a Fortune 500, federal judge, prosecuting the former president, “Make It.”) Meanwhile, I can barely hold it together on a “reduced schedule” at my entirely unimpressive mid tier gig, because it is a full time job making sure my kid gets the schooling he deserves and the therapy he needs. (schlepping him to said appointments is a SECOND full time job that my husband gets to do. ) All I can do is hope that it gets easier as he gets older.
I don't know how old your kiddo is, but I have two Autistic kids (and I'm in a community of moms with high need kids) and I promise that even if it doesn't get better, it will get easier. Our socieity is not set up to support caregiving or disability in any major way and that's fucked and on them and not you. <3
The worst. I hope it gets easier too!
I have a 7yo and we have just entered this time of her having things and opinions and plans for herself and it is EXTREME bullshit!! I did not love the boredom of being the mom of a very tiny child, but i did like the circular predictability of it where almost every day was identical with a tiny wrinkle of activity and weather. I am exhausted by the now that we are just entering into. I do love her and want her to grow into an independent person but also I hate it, no thank you.
But also, I urge all of you to find a non-work/non-family FUN fulfilling thing for you (reading novels, sewing, woodworking, pub trivia, whatever) and carve regular time out for it and protect it like your kid’s protect the dumb fucking toys they get at birthday parties. If they get stuff for them, you get stuff for you! Plus!! You are teaching them to be adults who take time for themselves and save them for the self-sacrificing middle class (mostly) white parenting trap we have all arrived at.
Note: i guess you could include your spouse or partner if you want.
Holy shit, I feel this so much. I have been struggling with dwindling ambition/motivation over the past year and I keep thinking, "What is wrong with me?" But yes, I am also insanely busy with the minutiae of raising two tweens with a mostly full-time job and a husband who is out of the house 12 hours a day 4x a week. Maybe that's why...... Anyway, thanks for putting things to into perspective. I will read this over and over again.
Sometimes I think about when my kids are grown and possibly at the stage of thinking about starting their own families, and what I would tell them/their partners about what you could realistically expect from yourself at that time of life and/or what type of help you may need if you can get it.
Although I also hope I’m wise enough to just keep my mouth shut, and support them.
I’m a few years past the “portal,” but I remember feeling similar. Part of it might be transitioning to being a parent of older kids. Instead of freeing up more time, the work shifted to more monotonous chores—more laundry, dishes, and places to be. And instead of oxytocin-inducing toddler hugs, I got cortisol-inducing older-kid sass.
What helped me was what you’re doing: expressing the bad feelings and sharing with others. Gradually, I shifted my expectations. I’ve realized most have-to’s really aren’t. Now, I just accept I’m going to disappoint someone—but I’m not going to take responsibility if it’s for something someone else should’ve remembered. I’ve let go of the idea that everything in life can be “managed.”
I'm full-on in the portal (peri-menopause, feeling guilty about my lack of job ambition, solo caring for challenging little kid, hormonal tween, and aging parents) and one thing I'm trying to learn is to accept that I'm going to disappoint someone - but that someone DOES NOT HAVE TO BE ME. Sometimes I can do something I know will disappoint someone else, even someone I am responsible for taking care of, but be the right thing for me, and that is okay.
If you're not disappointing at least one person per day are you even a mom?
To paraphrase you -- disappointing one person a day is my comfort zone!
Oh shit, I am Calvin’s mom. Hair and everything.
I was trying to think of a third example of a cartoon mom. I contemplated Lois from family guy, but she has curves and wears a button down shirt. Too sexy.
Because I still read the comics in my local paper, I'd like to suggest that the mom in Zits and the mom in Baby Blues also fit the bill.....and I laughed really hard at this section of the newsletter.
You are vindicating my husband who suggested BOTH those ladies when I asked him for other recos! So much bathrobe
So much bathrobe is right
I burst out laughing at this part of the newsletter. Reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes again w/kid and I can’t believe what a little butt Calvin is and how much I empathize with his mom
And I totally understand why Greg Heffley’s mom goes back to grad school. She deserves some her time.
My kids are obsessed with Calvin, and I long ago realized how much I love and identify with Calvin's mom. She's a hero, honestly.
I realized it's not a midlife crisis, but crisis in midlife. There is so much to do, so little time, and pressure to do more. Where that pressure is from? I don't know, but lately the answer to that voice that is telling me to do more is, NOPE!
Right now I am in a constant state of transition. My oldest is applying to colleges, my youngest is inserting her independence, my parents have slowed down significantly and their peers have also slowed down, gotten sick, or died. Conversation with my peers have shifted from taking care of kids to taking care of parents or our new and surprising ailments. Don't get me started on full on menopause (or rather I can't because I forgot what I was going to say.) I've been back to full time work for five years now and well...meh. I love what I do, but unlike the younger me, I have no desire to do more. I just want to "be" in peace. Once again I'm at that point where I realize I have to actualize the life I am living , rather than the life I thought I I should be living. Embracing my mundane, mediocre self is so freeing, and girl I am embracing it wholeheartedly. No, I am not out there doing this and that, my lazy ass is home, parked on my couch, eating cookies with my husband while watching "Stranger Things" for the umpteenth time. Leave me alone!
In the wise words of Antonio Salieri in the closing scene of the film Amadeus: Mediocrities everywhere... I absolve you... I absolve you...
I think about that scene a LOT.
I was just talking to a friend who is on month 11 of no period and I was rooting for her to make it the full 12 months. i'd be so mad to get that far just for one stupid little missing egg to show up.
You're awesome, ps.
I was at 6 month this month when Aunt Flow showed up uninvited. I was PISSED!
Last year I completely accepted "meh" re: my job-job. I have two volunteer gigs that I truly love and fulfill me and make me happy. I thought about transitioning from the industry I work in now (publishing) to the one in which I volunteer (non-profit/fundraising) and decided to side with the devil I know. I will just, as you say, "be" in peace at my job and not ruin the things I get enjoyment out of that would be ruined by metrics and deliverables and measurables and (shudder) annual performance assessments.
Damn, this resonates! I am reluctant to admit this but *sometimes* I kinda miss the lock down stage of 2020 (not all the death and disease obvi!). But Phew, a time when we didn’t have birthday parties and after school clubs, and play dates, and work happy hours and sports stuff. It was a simpler time 🤪
I know!! And I don’t miss the $$$$ and schlepping of daycare but at least back then I didn’t have to help the baby study.
Yes to the homework help, BTW! I never knew how much of my own school performance anxiety would get stirred up by overseeing my kid's homework. It's PAINFUL.
Yeah, I learned the hard way that being a cool hands off parent when it comes to homework and assignments does not pay off the way I hoped it might.
#truth. My husband was googling YouTube videos last night trying to help with 7th grade math.
Holy crap, this was so resonant that it just about broke me. I don't even have words right now except *thank you* for voicing this.
Beep beep 🫠
I'm all over the map. Our daughter is in her freshman year of college -- six hours away, but obviously I'm still needed for my wallet and answering the important questions like, "should I wear leggings today?" Our son is in second grade and I still haven't bothered teaching him how to tie his shoes. So, parenting whiplash!
I coach his soccer team, so that's two evening a week, plus Saturday games. Piano lessons. Church stuff. My non-negotiable spin class twice a week. Full-time job, plus a consulting gig. Got a weird family estrangement thing going on that I'm sometimes confused about and sometimes grateful for taking up valuable brain space.
I don't know. I'm filling my days with family related things, junk food Amazon Prime ebooks, work, and working out. I'm feeling myself for the first time in forever, so I'm kind of leaning in to that, as shallow and clutching on to youth as that may seem? I wore a (tasteful!) bodycon dress to the office this week. I'm 41 and I might start training for a half-marathon just because. Definitely midlife crisis, right?
I am glad you are feeling yourself! That is no small thing and it’s not shallow.
(I’m also working on an issue about shoe tying and silverware use and why some kids are just not super great at those things.)
My second grader also doesn't know how to tie his shoes (because all his shoes are Velcro) or ride a bike (because he has a scooter) and I need someone to convince me why I need to force this issue!
I mean if you don't have something to be low key worried about are you even alive?? And for bigger kids you can get away with shoes with hidden stretchy laces.
I do know someone who outsourced teaching their kid to ride a bike to some sort of camp. I don't know how I feel about that--probably genius, but then they missed out on the experience of their husband hollering at their kid crying on the sidewalk, and why would you want to skip that precious memory?
My kid did learn to ride a bike camp and she still hated it, and a teenage counselor at circus camp taught shoe tying bc the other option was tying shoes for the child because they required tie shoes at the camp. Just now in seventh grade she really got the hang of shoe tying, from another kid.
I think they are good skills, but don’t have a deadline to learn them.
I was talking about this with the OTs I was interviewing. I think anything where a kid has to mirror you is hard and with shoe tying, there are so many ways to do it! And also usually shoe tying is done in a "come on lets go!!" situation so it's hard to teach without getting stressed.
My second grader also cannot tie shoes because velcro and we have never attempted to teach her!! I have a hard time finding the urgency to teach her.
She also can’t ride a bike without training wheels. We sent her to bike camp and it did not succeed. She just is absolutely not ok with the wiggles you get as you get to balanced and moving and has decided she does not have to be ok with it or need to ride a bike.
I'm a teen services librarian, and run a craft night once a month -- it's really noticeable how huge a span there is in fine motor skills. Like, night and day between kids of the same age and it *feels* like this is new compared to the dark ages of the early 1990s, but that's probably not true.
Grade SIX and won't learn to tie shoes. Refuses Somehow brought home multiple items he hand-crafted in wood shops class. Playing clarinet in band class. Why are they like this.
Sounds more Midlife Badass than midlife crisis to me. I think it’s a victory that you’re like, fuck all this I need to do some things by myself (and I totes deserve to).
Honestly, thank you for saying that! I feel programmed to say I'm being selfish, but I'm not! No longer midlife crisis -- I'll call it my midlife breakthrough.
I feel this! My son said he wants to join the basketball team and I looked at the schedule and was like fuuuhhh….
My son got invited to try out for travel baseball and he didn’t make it and it’s both a bummer and also the sweetest thing ever. 🚗
It is a very real stage of life: need to get my oldest driving (driving well enough that the stress of him driving isn’t more than the stress of me driving him everywhere) before I can no longer ask my parents to help with driving. But also, realizing having a new driver doesn’t help that much if he doesn’t have a vehicle. Because I GUARANTEE the blowups we will have when he takes one of our cars when we have somewhere to be, and leaves his garbage and sports stuff festering in it?!?! WWIII. Christ, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
I understand now why people let their fetuses drive. Because it’s a nice little break.
And I have spent way too much time refreshing the news this week. Information is the enemy.
I feel your pain. My teen is 40 hours of drive time away from getting her license and we cannot get it done. However, if she got her license it would alleviate the intensity of the schedule. It's a vicious cycle.
We finally bought a cheap car from a friend for our 18 year old to use this year, and it is life-changing in how much time I have back. Yes I track him obsessively on Find my iphone still. But my car is just filled with MY trash now.
Ahhhhh, I just re-signed up for therapy because my shoes are dropping left and right - my mom died, I turned 50, my kids are teens who constantly need to be in 2 different places at ALL times, and I have to work full time so they can be 2 different places indulging their different interests at all times and I feel like no one, NO ONE, is getting the best of me, including me. Yay middle age.
My condolences on losing your mom. It's the worst.
I'm so sorry, Paige.
I don't know what season I'm in, but I know that it involves throwing away the fundraiser catalogs they keep sending my kid home with. And ignoring the multiple themed dress-up days for conference week. And the BOOK FAIR WALLET, FFS, WHY? We'll just go to Barnes & Noble on the weekend, it's all too much.
Another thing I think about in regards to creativity is that so much of my early impulses were about wanting to be heard. Now I have a partner that makes me feel heard, and most of my creative energy is used trying to find workarounds to two brilliant, willfull children. So lower motivation plus more energy being channeled elsewhere...it makes sense that I'm not writing, I think. As much as I might want to. Very mid indeed. haha
I still have my pesky ambition but also find it difficult to balance my big plans and ideas with all the little bullshit I have to deal with daily--Halloween, school fall festival, homework, dentist, life etc etc etc. But ALSO, my kids do not do extra curriculars, not really, and I am so relieved that they don't do sports. I hate sports! That bullshit asks entirely too much of the parents to make happen. UGH NOPE.
today my thing is thinking angrily "I should just stop trying to have a job!! what's the point!!!" while I throw away a rotten apple core in my 8 year old's bedroom. That'll show them.
Ha ha yes! Though, if I did that, my almost 8 year old would either make the apple core into a demented baby doll and/or art piece that could never be discarded, or sob for an hour about how I didn't love her as much as her brothers and that's why I trashed her room!
I very much resonate with "driving season" because I keep thinking "I am in cold and flu season." I have a 9-year-old and a (constantly snotty nosed and coughing) 3-year-old and am still getting used to the fact that this means double the life management for kids. Like, "ohhh, you, younger child, also need to go to the doctor? And have speech therapy? And bring things for show and tell? And learn to swim? And have friends whose birthday parties you attend every goddamn weekend?" I think the plus side of my own portal is that I've become far more realistic about what's feasible for us to manage and what we let go of or opt out of. I've also become more realistic about work and what it looks like right now. I remain driven but am also far more content in my current role - because it's one that enables my life to be decently feasible and flexible - than I would have been in the past.