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Put an oxygen mask on yourself and then on your baby.
I decided to ask mothers who have grown up. Mothers with difficult maternal experience – mothers who raised children with developmental problems, mothers of twins, mothers with many children, mothers with disabilities; mothers who had no help from anywhere. Moms who did it, raised kids, and didn't go crazy.
And first of all, let me remind you of the well-known airplane rule that psychologists have been applying to the upbringing of children for many years:Put an oxygen mask on yourself first and then on your baby.. If the mother does not get oxygen in time, both will suffocate.
Other hands
What do you do when you can't do it? The simplest answer that exists isdelegation of authority and assistance to others.
What if there's no money for a nanny? What if Dad's at work? What if there are no people around?
Nanny
My first child was born in one economic crisis, in 1990, and my second was born in another, in 1998. In both cases, my salary was critical to my family. I went to work both times when the children were about two years old; in one case, my grandparents helped, in the other – a nanny. When four people live on one dad's salary, there's no extra money for a babysitter. But if mom doesn't go to work, they'll never show up.
At first, two-thirds of my salary went to nannies. Gradually I began to earn more, but the main benefit of nanny was not that I can work. The child has another adult who loves him. I am a chaotic and emotional mother. And the nanny was calm and methodical, specialty kindergarten teacher. She cold-bloodedly taught the child independence - and she did it better than I did: without pain, arguments and nerves.
The nanny took on the work of teaching, going to the speech therapist and the exercise therapy, and I got a bored child and all the maternal happiness: reading aloud, joint games, chatter, creative ventures. At the same time, I had part of my salary, good mood and profession.
Grandma.
All interviewed mothers are unanimous: the help of the mother or mother-in-law is invaluable. Even if they say, “You’re not raising them well.” Even if everyone does the wrong thing. Respite is more important.
Dad.
My parents lived with us twins in an eight-meter communal room. Mom, how did you manage when there were no diapers, no microwaves, no slings? “Dad took a vacation right after you were born,” says my mother Katerina Lukyanova. All the first month we were on duty at night alternately and slept through the night – then he, then I. Dad immediately bought a washing machine, dirty diapers we first washed under the sink and soaked in the bucket, and then Dad came from work and washed everything in the car.
We did everything together: carried water to the room for swimming, bathed you. When you started walking, you started running away. When it was really hard, I put help on you for a walk. But not as a punishment: we had a game that you were horses, go-go-go-go, and I control you. In the evening, Dad read books with you, it was his favorite activity. On weekends, I took you out for a walk all day. I stayed at home with you until I was three. Sometimes I sit at home, look out the window and think: what happy people go to work! But I can't say you were my misfortune. It was very interesting with you: every day something new, some surprises, some new skills, just have time to notice. And after three years, we began to go with you – to theaters, to museums, and you are interested, and to us.
They're interesting.
This is probably the second important answer: children interestingly. Yes, you get stunned by reading about the stupid cat and five hundredths of a day; you want to load your brain with questions of geopolitics or social philosophy. But you can look at your own child through the eyes of a researcher; learn new things about childhood and children; watch how he learns to play, how he masters speech, how he learns to express his emotions; learn to help him - all this is a large and serious research work, and it is quite possible to load the brain, which stands idle while hands are busy.
Think, research, study, experiment: raising a child is an interesting scientific and practical project. Why does the baby cry for four hours straight? How to properly respond to tantrums? Can a child be taught to return to his mother when he runs away? You can learn to solve daily tasks not with your own hysterics, but with a professional educational reaction. This is akin to what teachers, nannies, teachers in kindergarten have to do: learn to respond to children’s experiences not emotionally, but professionally.
In any pedagogical work, children's screams, tantrums, whims, lies brought from the children's team profanity, fights, broken foreheads - this is not an excess, not a rare and accidental emergency, to which you can respond only with an emotional explosion, but a condition of work. As a stewardess - a drunken passenger on board, as a psychiatrist - a patient in acute psychosis, as a police officer - a bully, and the operator of the savings Bank - a scandalous and incomprehensible client. If all these professionals – instead of solving problems clearly, professionally, according to the rules – start yelling, swearing, handing out snails, they will either fall into anguish and resign, or, more likely, they will be fired.
No one's gonna fire Mom. But it also makes sense for mom to look for conscious, intelligent, professional ways to respond to her work problems. Maternity can and should be learned – it saves from unnecessary illusions, disappointments, doubts about their own competence. And the picture changes: if before a huge, mysterious and unpredictable tyrant-baby tortured a poor, small, weak, barely standing mother, now a big and strong mother understands her unreasonable little child and helps him. As our children say, this skill can be pumped.
Attention and help of a specialist
Moms who try very hard to be good mothers, great wives and wonderful housewives, at some point forget about themselves. They don't treat their teeth, because you have to take the younger one to the speech therapist. They don’t buy normal seasonal shoes because they need money for a neuropsychologist. Do not go to the doctor with months of pain. They don't go to the hospital because you can't leave the children with one husband. I know of cases where it ended tragically.
A mother who is physically or mentally ill, a mother with chronic pain, a mother with untreated depression, a mother who neglects her basic physiological needs (eating, sleeping, dressing according to the season) is not a good selfless mother, but a safety breaker. And if she herself does not notice that it is high time for her to see a specialist, then people who love her should persuade, or even take by the hand and take her to the doctor.
Tatiana, biologist, sons 23 and 24 yearsThe children were six months and two, I was a graduate student, living in my parents’ apartment. The parents went to the country, and the husband came for the weekend. And I, the fool, tried to redo everything this week so I could go out on weekends. I felt bad, including physically: my head hurt to vomiting, after vomiting passed. One day my mother’s friend, a doctor, came running in, was amazed and said that if her head starts to hurt so much, I don’t care about everything: let the children crawl dirty, and I should make myself a sweet coffee and go to read a detective. That's what I did. She did. It is necessary to allocate time for yourself and not to experience the torment of conscience “for purposelessly lived” minutes.
Lyudmila, manager, son 16 years oldMy son is a classic hyperactive child. He didn't sleep at all, just yelling and burping. When he learned to walk, I lost 11 pounds because he had to climb the steps to the 9th floor and back. When he was two years old, my husband died in an accident. I was very sad. For a whole year I could only talk about my grief. And the people around him said, "Take yourself together, you are strong, you must live for the sake of the child." It didn’t inspire me; depression even dulls the maternal instinct. I didn't want to live at all, I wanted to quietly dissolve and disappear. My mother and mother-in-law were seriously ill; I had a difficult job in an office where everyone quarreled with each other.
I am generally an active, active person who has always believed that you need to pull yourself together, that depression is fiction, that an ice shower and exercise are all healed. And at the same time, I could not carry out eight months on the balcony a bench that stood in the kitchen on the aisle. And then I found a forum of other moms, and one of them forced me to go to the doctor – before that in my circle there were no people who seek help from doctors or psychologists. And the doctor said reactive depression caused by chronic psychotrauma was well treated. After twenty days of taking the medicine, I began to distinguish the taste of food, and in life there were colors.
Time for yourself
I once heard a story from an American friend about a pastor’s wife who had 11 children. The children never gave the mother peace, and she had not only her own corner, but even the slightest opportunity to be alone and pray. And then she came up with a way out. And all the children in this family knew that if a mother sat down in the corner of the kitchen and covered her head with an apron, then she was talking to God - and you can not touch her. Or only if someone’s life is in danger.
There's a deep truth to that. Every mother needs not only to rest and get enough sleep – she needs time for herself. Personal time when you can be alone with your inner world. When you can think, talk to God, write a diary. Time for yourself may be the most unusual.
Maria, kindergarten teacher, children 12 and 14 years old: We lived in a two-piece small-town kitchen with a five-meter kitchen: in one room there are four of us, in the other there is a sister-in-law with her daughter. When I wanted to nail everyone and choke myself, I jumped out in what I was on the street – walked, trying to recover. Sometimes my sister-in-law and I would throw the kids at my husband and go somewhere to MEGU – just go shopping without money, like at exhibitions.
Tamara, NGO employee, son 16 years old“There was no money at all. Someone told me that at the Izmailovo market, the diapers I needed are cheaper, I decided to go there. The tram went there for 40 minutes, then on foot for another 10 minutes, walk around the market and back. It turned out more than two hours when I did not take care of the child and did not suffer from the conscience that I did not take care of the child. I also had time to sleep on the way. I started going there twice a month.
No one gave me advice like to go to a cafe with a friend or to a hairdresser, and there was no cafe in our district then, and there was a pity for money for the hairdresser. And then on the way from the market to the tram, I found a second-hand store. I bought fabulously wonderful things there for mere pennies. I dressed myself, dressed my mother and my husband. I could make presents! Is that not happiness? That's how I didn't go crazy. A little relatively free time, unassuming shopping and half an hour of sleep on the tram.”
Beasts.
Lyudmila, manager, son 16 years oldAfter the death of my husband, my dog, my love, took care of me. Walked with her at night, for two hours, nursing stress and trouble.”
Tatiana, biologistWalking with the dog also helped me a lot. What a walk! She will look at me with an understanding look, lick, I will rub her on a warm, gentle skin, say something affectionate, it immediately becomes easier. My friend.
Occupy your head and hands; live today
Marina, bank employee, son 12 years oldThe worst thing was when my son was thrown out of the garden. I could not leave the bank earlier, I could not take a break, and I could not quit, the mortgage on my mother's apartment hung. I forgot everything at work and didn’t want to go home at night. I went to the garden this morning waiting to be told. Coming from work and tears in the face, the counter asked what my grief was. Books saved me. I was leaving for another world.
She barely spoke to her husband, couldn’t talk, she cried. Almost all the housework was on the husband, and so was the child. Then he took over kindergarten. My husband took me for a walk every night in the park. We walked and sang songs loudly. I started singing at home, and it was getting easier. And I started to grow and grow houseflowers. Seeds, leaves and twigs. Now there is a huge bamboo at home, it occupies a whole wall, grown from a 10 centimeter stick. A year ago, it was bad too, and my husband remembered that I wanted to try a patchwork. I started sewing.
Larisa, top manager, sons 16 and 20If I hadn’t gone to work when the youngest was three, I would have gone crazy. The work gave a switch to something else and an illusion of the “normality” of the child and the normality of my life as a whole. The kid in the garden, I'm at work - everything is fine, like everyone else. For these days outside the house, I then paid in full – I came after a sleepless night in the morning, but I went to bed only late at night – during the day I had to do a lot of things – home and with children, on the pickup of nobody. It was then, probably, I grew up – self-disciplined, learned to do everything quickly, clearly and not to let into my life “extra” – something that can take away strength and emotions. It still helps. It also helps not to think about the future. To live today, that's all.”
Inna, psychologist, sons 16 and 21When the older one grew up, it was easier when he was able to get carried away. He and I were doing hand crafts, and he liked it and I did. Paper glued cars and ships. Large cities were built from constructors and cubes. Well, yeah, I did it, I did it everywhere, I didn't do it, but it was distracting. That's when I got hooked on patchwork. I just switched like I was going to another dimension. It just let go. You sit, do something with your hands, your thoughts calm down...so good.”
Elena, laboratory assistant, sons 12 and 20 yearsWhen children are young and you are young, when there are still many desires, you can find a loophole for recovery without a therapist or a psychiatrist. As soon as the desires disappear, I'm afraid, then psychiatric help will be too late. It is necessary to cherish desires for oneself alone. I was looking for a hobby. It was nice to even think about them. Each of my hobbies lived 1.5-2 years, then the passion went away and had to go through a terrible period before the new passion approached. When I realized that I was not happy without hobbies, I started actively looking for them.”
Galina has a special situation: She raised her 16-year-old son alone, without any help. My mother was sick first, then she died. The work had to leave: the son has autism, in childhood he could not be without his mother. “The most difficult time was when my mother turned into an awkward child, with delusions, with going nowhere, with memory lapses. I could not believe for a long time that she was different, everything was angry at her ... then, when I realized - I felt the horror just incredible, my mother went crazy, my child is not like that. My mind split. At work, it was necessary to make a decision: the third most important specialist, and at home it was total hell. There were times when I forgot my apartment number, work phone numbers, and friends’ phone numbers.
After my mother died, I really felt better. The grief of her terrible death was immense. But life has become easier. Maybe that’s why, after all that nightmare, it seemed like nothing. When it was difficult with my son, I tried to find a way to stay alone: I asked him to sit alone in the kitchen or I went there myself. Distracted by drawing or knitting. But most importantly, I had a goal; I was looking for help for my child, I was looking for a way out of the situation, I read websites, I thought – where else to go, what else to do, I knew that I had to dig the ground to find a way out in the future. And it has become easier over time”.
Goals, objectives and priorities
Maternity work is a large work, some of which can be delegated to others or completely ignored if there is no strength, and some cannot.
The work of a mother is both a household that can be divided between family members and delegated to someone, and the education of children, which can also be partially delegated to a nanny, governess, grandmother – to any calm person who does not get mad at the need to repeat, structure, endlessly play the same thing, count red circles and blue squares, draw houses, do lessons with a child, etc. And the actual maternal life with the child, which can neither be canceled nor delegated: warmth, care, scratching the back, home tea parties, reading books, heart-to-heart conversations, walking and playing, discussing difficult situations, debriefing flights - all that is so necessary for both mother and child - and for which there is never enough time and energy going to wash dishes, laundry, reading training, developing classes, shopping ...
And you look in anguish at some ideal mother in LiveJournal, who has a bunch of elegant children in a perfectly tidy apartment quietly doing homeschooling lessons, and she bakes an amazingly beautiful cake with the younger ones, and even beads embroidery. And you want to kill Siby apstenu, because the kids got into a fight again, the house is a mess, and the potatoes for dinner burned again, while the mother of the children was breaking up.
“The ability to clearly prioritize burnout helps,” says the clinical psychologist. Identify the main (what needs to be done) and secondary (what can be spit on). It is important to know that the main thing should not take more than two, three, five hours - each has its own degree of endurance. It is also necessary to understand and not to compare yourself with Masha, Natasha or Valya, who have everything on fire in their hands, children were washed, a cow washed. It is also important to be able to harshly suppress those who seek to criticize you and compare you with these very Mashas and Natashas. It is important not to plan everything rigidly: I have to do the first, second, fifth, tenth. Be calm about the fact that something will succeed and something will not. Life in general at any time can throw a surprise when you need to quit everything and do something completely different.
Such spontaneity allows perfectionists not to go crazy. And the task of a psychologist, when working with such a mother, is to give permission to be not an ideal mother and wife, but just relax.
Yes, and the support of loved ones is very important – not even direct help, but a calm attitude towards something not done. Because if the child is troubled, and the husband says, why are not cooked and the floors not washed - such a mother is very difficult.
Not "should," but "want."
For more than a decade, I have been running a parent-teacher online forum, Our Inattentive Hyperactive Children. During this time, our inattentive and hyperactive people grew up, graduated from high school, received higher education, and some even got married or married. During this time, the collective maternal mind of the forum has developed some important rules that allow the "bad mother" to remain sane. Here's the lead.
The scourge of every “bad mother” is “I must.” If she wants to be a good mother, she has to spin like a squirrel in a wheel, even though no one appreciates it and you can’t wait for gratitude.
There are so many different “shoulds” in the life of a mother that they are quite capable of devouring all her 24 hours in a day, licking and demanding more.
How do you deal with that? Only “I want” and “I love” help. Not “I have to clean up”, but “I want the house to be clean and try to get clean”, not “I have to play with the child in the palms”, but “I like to play with him in the palms”. And if you don’t like it, you should find someone who likes it, or come up with a game that is interesting for both.
To do only what is disgusting, disgusting, across the soul and at the same time “should” – the sure way to burnout. So it's worth explaining to yourself: who do I owe it to, what do I really want to do, and whether it's okay not to do things I hate. Sometimes it turns out that the relatives of the mother, a cheerful sloppy, like much more than the heroic martyr mother with grievously clenched lips and an eternal punishing broom in her hand.
Fighting the routine
When you sit at home with children, the routine is crazy: every day is the same, every day is the same. Once I read on the website 7ya.ru the advice of a mother with many children, among whose children there was a girl with a severe disability. "I try to learn something all the time," this mother wrote. Every day to do something new, even just go the other way to the clinic or buy a subway ticket not at the ticket office, but at the vending machine.
Moms begin to envy people going to work because life, which is limited to home, does not give their minds enough impressions, new experiences, food for thought. Therefore, new sensations, new roads, new knowledge, and even a new skirt are so important.
In the fight against routine helps movement. Sports, dancing, running with a child in the park. Creativity helps (small needlework is not only a way to calm your nerves, but also a creative flight). New aesthetic experiences help (cinema, museum, YouTube performance, after all). And learn, yes.
Me and others.
When you sit at home in four walls, communication is very necessary. Social media allows you to stay in touch with friends and family; parent forums, conferences and communities allow you to quickly find solutions to problems. (Well, if you don’t make yourself the problem of “why am I not as beautiful as Masha?”)
And, strangely enough, helping other people to feel strong helps. It turns out that each of us has something to offer the world, except selfies with a sling and glamorous photos of a baby. We can share experience and professional knowledge. We can share joy, emotional warmth, the fruits of our creativity, even if it is not a decoupage commodik, embroidered drool or Tsvetaev pie, but sad poems or an ironic comic book.
It helps us to understand our orientations: who is competent and interesting to us in terms of raising children? And focus on those who are competent, overlooking uninteresting philistine judgments.
Helps to talk with her husband, mother, and friend on topics that go beyond everyday everyday life.
Sometimes you need to step over the internal barrier and ask for help when you really need it: ask to come and make you soup. Ask for a doctor at home (yes, and that too).
In conversations with relatives, it is important to refrain from theoretical disputes between spearheads and dull-pointers (vaccinations, breastfeeding, feeding on schedule / on demand, tight swaddling - cholivars are not needed at home). Different views on raising a child in different people is normal. It is important to understand that relatives also want the child well, but they may have a different idea of good.
Careful!
Elena, laboratory doctor.Alcohol helped for a very long time, kept from despair and tantrums, gave anesthesia, under which you could do something simple. For example, household chores, when you fall down after talking to children or hysteria after meeting with school, plus the first shift work. Now it is obvious that you can no longer drink, the resource is exhausted. Write about alcohol and its dangers.”
Larisa, entrepreneur, children 17, 8 and 2The worst thing was in the fifth grade, when the senior, even in a private school, was transferred to individual education (with a surcharge). Then it was just stupid despair and complete dead end. Saved cigarettes, chocolate, peanuts in sugar, whiskey with cola, red wine ... Now I think it's good that no one offered heroin back then. A little bit more saved the small then average. And building a house: one problem distracts from another problem.
I'm not just a mom.
Once at teacher training courses, a psychologist asked a group of teachers to write ten nouns answering the question “Who am I?”. Of the fifteen leaves, thirteen began as follows: 1. I'm a mom.
On our parenting forum, we even had to ban nicknames with the word “mama”, because mothers could not tell the world anything about themselves, except that they are Vanya’s mother, Tanya’s mother, Masha and Dasha’s mother, mother of three, mother of two.
But motherhood is not our only content. We cannot live exclusively with our children and through children; children will grow up and go away; who will we be when we become instead of “Mother Viti” – “Mother of Viktor Ivanovich”, “Mother of Associate Professor Petrova” and “Mother-in-law of the General Director”? What will we live for? How will we be interested in ourselves and others?
Gratitude.
Gratitude is a powerful force that keeps you afloat. It is very important to say “thank you” in time and be grateful to God, parents, children, husband, children, friends. When you think about it, there are plenty of reasons to say thank you.
Moring roaches
An ordinary mother’s head is full of cockroaches, the fattest of which are shame and guilt. Guilt for every two minutes you dedicate to yourself, not to your children, your husband, or your household. Shame on imperfections and unfinished business.
And besides them, almost everyone has their uncrying grief, unsurvived loss, unreflected doubts. There are groans of despair driven inside (I have to be strong, aha, I have to rule myself). There are common ways to communicate with yourself: “Get up, you fool!” Concentrate, rag! – not to mention the fact that the rag physically can not gather, all this does not add to our concentration or self-esteem.
And where there is no self-respect, there is no mutual respect in relations - neither with her husband nor with children.
One of the most important maternal tasks is to kill cockroaches in your head. Live your grief. To mourn your loss. Dealing with your shame and your guilt. Learn self-esteem. Learn nonviolent communication with yourself and others. It's really a separate story. The main thing is not to launch your inner world, otherwise the abomination of desolation will creep out.
It is important to learn to express your emotions and learn not to bring the boil to the point of no return. Mastering “messages”: not “how you all got me” but “how tired I am.” Not “leave me alone” but “I need to be alone.” Not “stop screaming,” but “I don’t like screaming loudly.” Not "nothing" but "I'm sad" or "I'm upset."
It's important to cry on time. Time to go to the kitchen and sit there alone. In time to realize that you do not control yourself and need outside help. That is, simply paying attention to yourself.
And remember, I'm a good mother.published
Author: Irina Lukyanova
P.S. And remember, just changing our consumption – together we change the world!
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Source: www.pravmir.ru/nadente-kislorodnuyu-masku-snachala-na-sebya-a-potom-na-rebenka/
And first of all, let me remind you of the well-known airplane rule that psychologists have been applying to the upbringing of children for many years:Put an oxygen mask on yourself first and then on your baby.. If the mother does not get oxygen in time, both will suffocate.
Other hands
What do you do when you can't do it? The simplest answer that exists isdelegation of authority and assistance to others.
What if there's no money for a nanny? What if Dad's at work? What if there are no people around?
Nanny
My first child was born in one economic crisis, in 1990, and my second was born in another, in 1998. In both cases, my salary was critical to my family. I went to work both times when the children were about two years old; in one case, my grandparents helped, in the other – a nanny. When four people live on one dad's salary, there's no extra money for a babysitter. But if mom doesn't go to work, they'll never show up.
At first, two-thirds of my salary went to nannies. Gradually I began to earn more, but the main benefit of nanny was not that I can work. The child has another adult who loves him. I am a chaotic and emotional mother. And the nanny was calm and methodical, specialty kindergarten teacher. She cold-bloodedly taught the child independence - and she did it better than I did: without pain, arguments and nerves.
The nanny took on the work of teaching, going to the speech therapist and the exercise therapy, and I got a bored child and all the maternal happiness: reading aloud, joint games, chatter, creative ventures. At the same time, I had part of my salary, good mood and profession.
Grandma.
All interviewed mothers are unanimous: the help of the mother or mother-in-law is invaluable. Even if they say, “You’re not raising them well.” Even if everyone does the wrong thing. Respite is more important.
Dad.
My parents lived with us twins in an eight-meter communal room. Mom, how did you manage when there were no diapers, no microwaves, no slings? “Dad took a vacation right after you were born,” says my mother Katerina Lukyanova. All the first month we were on duty at night alternately and slept through the night – then he, then I. Dad immediately bought a washing machine, dirty diapers we first washed under the sink and soaked in the bucket, and then Dad came from work and washed everything in the car.
We did everything together: carried water to the room for swimming, bathed you. When you started walking, you started running away. When it was really hard, I put help on you for a walk. But not as a punishment: we had a game that you were horses, go-go-go-go, and I control you. In the evening, Dad read books with you, it was his favorite activity. On weekends, I took you out for a walk all day. I stayed at home with you until I was three. Sometimes I sit at home, look out the window and think: what happy people go to work! But I can't say you were my misfortune. It was very interesting with you: every day something new, some surprises, some new skills, just have time to notice. And after three years, we began to go with you – to theaters, to museums, and you are interested, and to us.
They're interesting.
This is probably the second important answer: children interestingly. Yes, you get stunned by reading about the stupid cat and five hundredths of a day; you want to load your brain with questions of geopolitics or social philosophy. But you can look at your own child through the eyes of a researcher; learn new things about childhood and children; watch how he learns to play, how he masters speech, how he learns to express his emotions; learn to help him - all this is a large and serious research work, and it is quite possible to load the brain, which stands idle while hands are busy.
Think, research, study, experiment: raising a child is an interesting scientific and practical project. Why does the baby cry for four hours straight? How to properly respond to tantrums? Can a child be taught to return to his mother when he runs away? You can learn to solve daily tasks not with your own hysterics, but with a professional educational reaction. This is akin to what teachers, nannies, teachers in kindergarten have to do: learn to respond to children’s experiences not emotionally, but professionally.
In any pedagogical work, children's screams, tantrums, whims, lies brought from the children's team profanity, fights, broken foreheads - this is not an excess, not a rare and accidental emergency, to which you can respond only with an emotional explosion, but a condition of work. As a stewardess - a drunken passenger on board, as a psychiatrist - a patient in acute psychosis, as a police officer - a bully, and the operator of the savings Bank - a scandalous and incomprehensible client. If all these professionals – instead of solving problems clearly, professionally, according to the rules – start yelling, swearing, handing out snails, they will either fall into anguish and resign, or, more likely, they will be fired.
No one's gonna fire Mom. But it also makes sense for mom to look for conscious, intelligent, professional ways to respond to her work problems. Maternity can and should be learned – it saves from unnecessary illusions, disappointments, doubts about their own competence. And the picture changes: if before a huge, mysterious and unpredictable tyrant-baby tortured a poor, small, weak, barely standing mother, now a big and strong mother understands her unreasonable little child and helps him. As our children say, this skill can be pumped.
Attention and help of a specialist
Moms who try very hard to be good mothers, great wives and wonderful housewives, at some point forget about themselves. They don't treat their teeth, because you have to take the younger one to the speech therapist. They don’t buy normal seasonal shoes because they need money for a neuropsychologist. Do not go to the doctor with months of pain. They don't go to the hospital because you can't leave the children with one husband. I know of cases where it ended tragically.
A mother who is physically or mentally ill, a mother with chronic pain, a mother with untreated depression, a mother who neglects her basic physiological needs (eating, sleeping, dressing according to the season) is not a good selfless mother, but a safety breaker. And if she herself does not notice that it is high time for her to see a specialist, then people who love her should persuade, or even take by the hand and take her to the doctor.
Tatiana, biologist, sons 23 and 24 yearsThe children were six months and two, I was a graduate student, living in my parents’ apartment. The parents went to the country, and the husband came for the weekend. And I, the fool, tried to redo everything this week so I could go out on weekends. I felt bad, including physically: my head hurt to vomiting, after vomiting passed. One day my mother’s friend, a doctor, came running in, was amazed and said that if her head starts to hurt so much, I don’t care about everything: let the children crawl dirty, and I should make myself a sweet coffee and go to read a detective. That's what I did. She did. It is necessary to allocate time for yourself and not to experience the torment of conscience “for purposelessly lived” minutes.
Lyudmila, manager, son 16 years oldMy son is a classic hyperactive child. He didn't sleep at all, just yelling and burping. When he learned to walk, I lost 11 pounds because he had to climb the steps to the 9th floor and back. When he was two years old, my husband died in an accident. I was very sad. For a whole year I could only talk about my grief. And the people around him said, "Take yourself together, you are strong, you must live for the sake of the child." It didn’t inspire me; depression even dulls the maternal instinct. I didn't want to live at all, I wanted to quietly dissolve and disappear. My mother and mother-in-law were seriously ill; I had a difficult job in an office where everyone quarreled with each other.
I am generally an active, active person who has always believed that you need to pull yourself together, that depression is fiction, that an ice shower and exercise are all healed. And at the same time, I could not carry out eight months on the balcony a bench that stood in the kitchen on the aisle. And then I found a forum of other moms, and one of them forced me to go to the doctor – before that in my circle there were no people who seek help from doctors or psychologists. And the doctor said reactive depression caused by chronic psychotrauma was well treated. After twenty days of taking the medicine, I began to distinguish the taste of food, and in life there were colors.
Time for yourself
I once heard a story from an American friend about a pastor’s wife who had 11 children. The children never gave the mother peace, and she had not only her own corner, but even the slightest opportunity to be alone and pray. And then she came up with a way out. And all the children in this family knew that if a mother sat down in the corner of the kitchen and covered her head with an apron, then she was talking to God - and you can not touch her. Or only if someone’s life is in danger.
There's a deep truth to that. Every mother needs not only to rest and get enough sleep – she needs time for herself. Personal time when you can be alone with your inner world. When you can think, talk to God, write a diary. Time for yourself may be the most unusual.
Maria, kindergarten teacher, children 12 and 14 years old: We lived in a two-piece small-town kitchen with a five-meter kitchen: in one room there are four of us, in the other there is a sister-in-law with her daughter. When I wanted to nail everyone and choke myself, I jumped out in what I was on the street – walked, trying to recover. Sometimes my sister-in-law and I would throw the kids at my husband and go somewhere to MEGU – just go shopping without money, like at exhibitions.
Tamara, NGO employee, son 16 years old“There was no money at all. Someone told me that at the Izmailovo market, the diapers I needed are cheaper, I decided to go there. The tram went there for 40 minutes, then on foot for another 10 minutes, walk around the market and back. It turned out more than two hours when I did not take care of the child and did not suffer from the conscience that I did not take care of the child. I also had time to sleep on the way. I started going there twice a month.
No one gave me advice like to go to a cafe with a friend or to a hairdresser, and there was no cafe in our district then, and there was a pity for money for the hairdresser. And then on the way from the market to the tram, I found a second-hand store. I bought fabulously wonderful things there for mere pennies. I dressed myself, dressed my mother and my husband. I could make presents! Is that not happiness? That's how I didn't go crazy. A little relatively free time, unassuming shopping and half an hour of sleep on the tram.”
Beasts.
Lyudmila, manager, son 16 years oldAfter the death of my husband, my dog, my love, took care of me. Walked with her at night, for two hours, nursing stress and trouble.”
Tatiana, biologistWalking with the dog also helped me a lot. What a walk! She will look at me with an understanding look, lick, I will rub her on a warm, gentle skin, say something affectionate, it immediately becomes easier. My friend.
Occupy your head and hands; live today
Marina, bank employee, son 12 years oldThe worst thing was when my son was thrown out of the garden. I could not leave the bank earlier, I could not take a break, and I could not quit, the mortgage on my mother's apartment hung. I forgot everything at work and didn’t want to go home at night. I went to the garden this morning waiting to be told. Coming from work and tears in the face, the counter asked what my grief was. Books saved me. I was leaving for another world.
She barely spoke to her husband, couldn’t talk, she cried. Almost all the housework was on the husband, and so was the child. Then he took over kindergarten. My husband took me for a walk every night in the park. We walked and sang songs loudly. I started singing at home, and it was getting easier. And I started to grow and grow houseflowers. Seeds, leaves and twigs. Now there is a huge bamboo at home, it occupies a whole wall, grown from a 10 centimeter stick. A year ago, it was bad too, and my husband remembered that I wanted to try a patchwork. I started sewing.
Larisa, top manager, sons 16 and 20If I hadn’t gone to work when the youngest was three, I would have gone crazy. The work gave a switch to something else and an illusion of the “normality” of the child and the normality of my life as a whole. The kid in the garden, I'm at work - everything is fine, like everyone else. For these days outside the house, I then paid in full – I came after a sleepless night in the morning, but I went to bed only late at night – during the day I had to do a lot of things – home and with children, on the pickup of nobody. It was then, probably, I grew up – self-disciplined, learned to do everything quickly, clearly and not to let into my life “extra” – something that can take away strength and emotions. It still helps. It also helps not to think about the future. To live today, that's all.”
Inna, psychologist, sons 16 and 21When the older one grew up, it was easier when he was able to get carried away. He and I were doing hand crafts, and he liked it and I did. Paper glued cars and ships. Large cities were built from constructors and cubes. Well, yeah, I did it, I did it everywhere, I didn't do it, but it was distracting. That's when I got hooked on patchwork. I just switched like I was going to another dimension. It just let go. You sit, do something with your hands, your thoughts calm down...so good.”
Elena, laboratory assistant, sons 12 and 20 yearsWhen children are young and you are young, when there are still many desires, you can find a loophole for recovery without a therapist or a psychiatrist. As soon as the desires disappear, I'm afraid, then psychiatric help will be too late. It is necessary to cherish desires for oneself alone. I was looking for a hobby. It was nice to even think about them. Each of my hobbies lived 1.5-2 years, then the passion went away and had to go through a terrible period before the new passion approached. When I realized that I was not happy without hobbies, I started actively looking for them.”
Galina has a special situation: She raised her 16-year-old son alone, without any help. My mother was sick first, then she died. The work had to leave: the son has autism, in childhood he could not be without his mother. “The most difficult time was when my mother turned into an awkward child, with delusions, with going nowhere, with memory lapses. I could not believe for a long time that she was different, everything was angry at her ... then, when I realized - I felt the horror just incredible, my mother went crazy, my child is not like that. My mind split. At work, it was necessary to make a decision: the third most important specialist, and at home it was total hell. There were times when I forgot my apartment number, work phone numbers, and friends’ phone numbers.
After my mother died, I really felt better. The grief of her terrible death was immense. But life has become easier. Maybe that’s why, after all that nightmare, it seemed like nothing. When it was difficult with my son, I tried to find a way to stay alone: I asked him to sit alone in the kitchen or I went there myself. Distracted by drawing or knitting. But most importantly, I had a goal; I was looking for help for my child, I was looking for a way out of the situation, I read websites, I thought – where else to go, what else to do, I knew that I had to dig the ground to find a way out in the future. And it has become easier over time”.
Goals, objectives and priorities
Maternity work is a large work, some of which can be delegated to others or completely ignored if there is no strength, and some cannot.
The work of a mother is both a household that can be divided between family members and delegated to someone, and the education of children, which can also be partially delegated to a nanny, governess, grandmother – to any calm person who does not get mad at the need to repeat, structure, endlessly play the same thing, count red circles and blue squares, draw houses, do lessons with a child, etc. And the actual maternal life with the child, which can neither be canceled nor delegated: warmth, care, scratching the back, home tea parties, reading books, heart-to-heart conversations, walking and playing, discussing difficult situations, debriefing flights - all that is so necessary for both mother and child - and for which there is never enough time and energy going to wash dishes, laundry, reading training, developing classes, shopping ...
And you look in anguish at some ideal mother in LiveJournal, who has a bunch of elegant children in a perfectly tidy apartment quietly doing homeschooling lessons, and she bakes an amazingly beautiful cake with the younger ones, and even beads embroidery. And you want to kill Siby apstenu, because the kids got into a fight again, the house is a mess, and the potatoes for dinner burned again, while the mother of the children was breaking up.
“The ability to clearly prioritize burnout helps,” says the clinical psychologist. Identify the main (what needs to be done) and secondary (what can be spit on). It is important to know that the main thing should not take more than two, three, five hours - each has its own degree of endurance. It is also necessary to understand and not to compare yourself with Masha, Natasha or Valya, who have everything on fire in their hands, children were washed, a cow washed. It is also important to be able to harshly suppress those who seek to criticize you and compare you with these very Mashas and Natashas. It is important not to plan everything rigidly: I have to do the first, second, fifth, tenth. Be calm about the fact that something will succeed and something will not. Life in general at any time can throw a surprise when you need to quit everything and do something completely different.
Such spontaneity allows perfectionists not to go crazy. And the task of a psychologist, when working with such a mother, is to give permission to be not an ideal mother and wife, but just relax.
Yes, and the support of loved ones is very important – not even direct help, but a calm attitude towards something not done. Because if the child is troubled, and the husband says, why are not cooked and the floors not washed - such a mother is very difficult.
Not "should," but "want."
For more than a decade, I have been running a parent-teacher online forum, Our Inattentive Hyperactive Children. During this time, our inattentive and hyperactive people grew up, graduated from high school, received higher education, and some even got married or married. During this time, the collective maternal mind of the forum has developed some important rules that allow the "bad mother" to remain sane. Here's the lead.
The scourge of every “bad mother” is “I must.” If she wants to be a good mother, she has to spin like a squirrel in a wheel, even though no one appreciates it and you can’t wait for gratitude.
There are so many different “shoulds” in the life of a mother that they are quite capable of devouring all her 24 hours in a day, licking and demanding more.
How do you deal with that? Only “I want” and “I love” help. Not “I have to clean up”, but “I want the house to be clean and try to get clean”, not “I have to play with the child in the palms”, but “I like to play with him in the palms”. And if you don’t like it, you should find someone who likes it, or come up with a game that is interesting for both.
To do only what is disgusting, disgusting, across the soul and at the same time “should” – the sure way to burnout. So it's worth explaining to yourself: who do I owe it to, what do I really want to do, and whether it's okay not to do things I hate. Sometimes it turns out that the relatives of the mother, a cheerful sloppy, like much more than the heroic martyr mother with grievously clenched lips and an eternal punishing broom in her hand.
Fighting the routine
When you sit at home with children, the routine is crazy: every day is the same, every day is the same. Once I read on the website 7ya.ru the advice of a mother with many children, among whose children there was a girl with a severe disability. "I try to learn something all the time," this mother wrote. Every day to do something new, even just go the other way to the clinic or buy a subway ticket not at the ticket office, but at the vending machine.
Moms begin to envy people going to work because life, which is limited to home, does not give their minds enough impressions, new experiences, food for thought. Therefore, new sensations, new roads, new knowledge, and even a new skirt are so important.
In the fight against routine helps movement. Sports, dancing, running with a child in the park. Creativity helps (small needlework is not only a way to calm your nerves, but also a creative flight). New aesthetic experiences help (cinema, museum, YouTube performance, after all). And learn, yes.
Me and others.
When you sit at home in four walls, communication is very necessary. Social media allows you to stay in touch with friends and family; parent forums, conferences and communities allow you to quickly find solutions to problems. (Well, if you don’t make yourself the problem of “why am I not as beautiful as Masha?”)
And, strangely enough, helping other people to feel strong helps. It turns out that each of us has something to offer the world, except selfies with a sling and glamorous photos of a baby. We can share experience and professional knowledge. We can share joy, emotional warmth, the fruits of our creativity, even if it is not a decoupage commodik, embroidered drool or Tsvetaev pie, but sad poems or an ironic comic book.
It helps us to understand our orientations: who is competent and interesting to us in terms of raising children? And focus on those who are competent, overlooking uninteresting philistine judgments.
Helps to talk with her husband, mother, and friend on topics that go beyond everyday everyday life.
Sometimes you need to step over the internal barrier and ask for help when you really need it: ask to come and make you soup. Ask for a doctor at home (yes, and that too).
In conversations with relatives, it is important to refrain from theoretical disputes between spearheads and dull-pointers (vaccinations, breastfeeding, feeding on schedule / on demand, tight swaddling - cholivars are not needed at home). Different views on raising a child in different people is normal. It is important to understand that relatives also want the child well, but they may have a different idea of good.
Careful!
Elena, laboratory doctor.Alcohol helped for a very long time, kept from despair and tantrums, gave anesthesia, under which you could do something simple. For example, household chores, when you fall down after talking to children or hysteria after meeting with school, plus the first shift work. Now it is obvious that you can no longer drink, the resource is exhausted. Write about alcohol and its dangers.”
Larisa, entrepreneur, children 17, 8 and 2The worst thing was in the fifth grade, when the senior, even in a private school, was transferred to individual education (with a surcharge). Then it was just stupid despair and complete dead end. Saved cigarettes, chocolate, peanuts in sugar, whiskey with cola, red wine ... Now I think it's good that no one offered heroin back then. A little bit more saved the small then average. And building a house: one problem distracts from another problem.
I'm not just a mom.
Once at teacher training courses, a psychologist asked a group of teachers to write ten nouns answering the question “Who am I?”. Of the fifteen leaves, thirteen began as follows: 1. I'm a mom.
On our parenting forum, we even had to ban nicknames with the word “mama”, because mothers could not tell the world anything about themselves, except that they are Vanya’s mother, Tanya’s mother, Masha and Dasha’s mother, mother of three, mother of two.
But motherhood is not our only content. We cannot live exclusively with our children and through children; children will grow up and go away; who will we be when we become instead of “Mother Viti” – “Mother of Viktor Ivanovich”, “Mother of Associate Professor Petrova” and “Mother-in-law of the General Director”? What will we live for? How will we be interested in ourselves and others?
Gratitude.
Gratitude is a powerful force that keeps you afloat. It is very important to say “thank you” in time and be grateful to God, parents, children, husband, children, friends. When you think about it, there are plenty of reasons to say thank you.
Moring roaches
An ordinary mother’s head is full of cockroaches, the fattest of which are shame and guilt. Guilt for every two minutes you dedicate to yourself, not to your children, your husband, or your household. Shame on imperfections and unfinished business.
And besides them, almost everyone has their uncrying grief, unsurvived loss, unreflected doubts. There are groans of despair driven inside (I have to be strong, aha, I have to rule myself). There are common ways to communicate with yourself: “Get up, you fool!” Concentrate, rag! – not to mention the fact that the rag physically can not gather, all this does not add to our concentration or self-esteem.
And where there is no self-respect, there is no mutual respect in relations - neither with her husband nor with children.
One of the most important maternal tasks is to kill cockroaches in your head. Live your grief. To mourn your loss. Dealing with your shame and your guilt. Learn self-esteem. Learn nonviolent communication with yourself and others. It's really a separate story. The main thing is not to launch your inner world, otherwise the abomination of desolation will creep out.
It is important to learn to express your emotions and learn not to bring the boil to the point of no return. Mastering “messages”: not “how you all got me” but “how tired I am.” Not “leave me alone” but “I need to be alone.” Not “stop screaming,” but “I don’t like screaming loudly.” Not "nothing" but "I'm sad" or "I'm upset."
It's important to cry on time. Time to go to the kitchen and sit there alone. In time to realize that you do not control yourself and need outside help. That is, simply paying attention to yourself.
And remember, I'm a good mother.published
Author: Irina Lukyanova
P.S. And remember, just changing our consumption – together we change the world!
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Source: www.pravmir.ru/nadente-kislorodnuyu-masku-snachala-na-sebya-a-potom-na-rebenka/
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