Parenting is such a mind fuck.
- Pregnancy
- Infant
- Toddler
- Kid
- Teen
- Adult
Yeah…okay. Maybe if you have one child.
But I have four children.
Which means the chapters of parenting are nowhere near neat and orderly. It’s like pregnant, infant, toddler, pregnant, infant, kid, pregnant with TWO HUMANS AT ONE TIME, toddler, kid, TWO infants, toddler, kid, TWO toddlers, kid, kid, three kids, teen, two kids, teen, teen, two kids, teen, adult.
And that’s where I am now.
It’s not exactly linear or orderly. It’s a cluster of everything all at once.
Every day for the past 17 years has been different, but nothing like today.
I’m parenting four entirely different humans, all in the midst of wildly different seasons, all needing me in conflicting ways – almost always at the exact same moment.
“There’s no such busy as four kids who are academic achievers and athletes at the same time busy” – Tiffany Raiford, mother of four academic achievers who are also athletes all at the same time, all the time. Wise words, my friends.
Welcome. To. My. Life.
One is almost an adult. One thinks she’s an adult. One is basically a teenager, and one still needs me to remind him to wash all of his body parts in the shower EVERY SHOWER.
Let me break it down for you:
- I have a high school senior who is graduating in five months with both her AA degree and her high school diploma and leaving for university
- I have a ninth grader who is super fucking cool who is also disdainful of everything and everyone
- I have two sixth graders who alternate between needing independence and needing me like oxygen
At any given moment, I am:
- Discussing dorm logistics
- Refereeing sibling injustice
- Reminding someone to shower
- Begging the children to skip half days at school because they’re dumb
All before breakfast.
I switch gears constantly – which is why it’s a good thing I can drive a stick.
Parenting four kids in four seasons isn’t for the weak.
It requires a spouse who is equally invested, involved, and in-the-know (thank God for my husband who is absolutely the superior parent).
It’s emotional whiplash.
I don’t have time to drown my sorrows (or myself).
I can only practice patience (practice, in my case, does NOT make perfect).
It’s an emotional trainwreck at times.
Let me provide you with an example.
I want my kids to succeed. I want them to win. But I have spent four years sitting in the stands every Friday night of football season hoping our team loses so we don’t have to go into any playoffs or extra weeks of games that my daughter has to cheer at because I’m tired, over it, and want to go back to Friday night take-out and movie nights.
Okay, okay…if our team is losing, I’m also rooting for our team to be down by 35 points so they start a running clock.
I am a truly terrible person.
But I’ve never killed anyone, so there’s that.
The expectations are real.
As a mom, I’m expected to do some serious things all the time.
- Let go gracefully
- Lead with wisdom
- Show up steadily
- Guide gently
- Discipline fairly
- Hold onto everyone’s feelings while working on not dropping my own
It’s…a lot.
More is required the older they get.
We spent half our children’s infancy and toddler-hood thinking that it’ll be so much easier when they’re older. Calmer. Quieter. Less hectic.
The. Fuck. It. Is.
It’s busier. Louder. More hectic. More difficult. More complex.
I miss the days when my biggest worry was that one of the kids would fall down the stairs coming down in the mornings.
Now I worry about car accidents, muggings, kidnappings, and college.
My oldest needs my trust, autonomy, emotional respect, space to grow and thrive. My middle daughter needs structure and reassurance and boundaries and constant reminders that YES, most people are idiots, but NO, you cannot tell them that (I mean, I tell them that, but my husband has asked that I not tell her that she should tell them that). My twins need attention, structure, comfort, and like 90 billion snacks a day…and a ride. A fucking ride everywhere.
And they all it need all right now, constantly, always.
I am always failing someone.
Truth be told, it’s usually myself.
My kids and my husband actually think I’m pretty fucking badass (they’re not entirely wrong), but I live every day of my life feeling as if I’ve failed someone.
When you’re raising four kids in four seasons and four different walks of life, you just don’t feel like you’re doing enough, are enough, are good enough, are doing it well…
There’s no such thing as perfect balance.
But boy have I learned how to recalibrate.
(my nervous system doesn’t know what a quiet life looks like)
The identity shift is real(ly sad and horrible and also beautiful).
There’s something so uncomfortable about this season that I’ve had to face – hard.
I’m not the most important person in my kids’ lives forever.
My daughter? She’s 17…and we are not the most important people in her life anymore. Her boyfriend of three years, her two best friends…those are the most important people in her life (thankfully, she’s discerning and wise, and she chose wisely and well with those three). My husband and I? She loves us. She needs us. She respects us, and I’m almost positive she likes us, but we are not the most important people to her anymore.
Does that break our hearts? One billion percent.
Does that make us proud? You bet it does. It tells us we’ve taught her well enough to trust herself and her loved ones.
Right now, we are the single most important people in the lives of our three younger kids, but our days are numbered, and we know it.
We are learning how to be both an anchor and a safety net for four kids in four different life phases.
We are learning to matter in a different way, shape, and form that we ever have.
We are learning.
We. Are. Learning.
This season isn’t messy because we’re doing it wrong.
It’s messy and chaotic because everything happens all at once all the time.
Beginnings and endings.
Independence and dependence.
Holding on and letting go.
Most days, I handle it all with grace.
Some days, I cry myself to sleep.
Every day, I show up and I smile and I tell my kids I love them using my words and my actions.
It all counts.
The truth that moms need to hear:
Raising kids in different seasons at the same time is many things:
- Exhausting
- Emotionally demanding
- Overstimulating
- Meaningful
- Beautiful
- Sad, beautiful, tragic
It stretches you.
It humbles you.
It forces you to let go.
Motherhood is not linear.
You are not behind.
You are not missing something.
You are not failing.
You are just a mom in surround sound.
And if you feel tired, tender, proud, overwhelmed, and deeply in love with this life all at once? Well, that just means you’re doing it right.
Even if you don’t feel it.
Especially if you don’t feel it.
Tiffany Raiford 