Another First

Well, we had our first ever parent-teacher conference today.  Why would a three-year-old preschool class require that, you ask?  Well, primarily because most of the kids in the program are those that have special speech pathology or other developmental issues.  So the PT conferences are strategic planning zones for parents to evaluate progress of their wee ones and make plans for the “what’s next” phase.

Anyway, I was actually quite nervous.  In fact, I believe the term I used earlier in the week was that I was “already self-flagellating myself for all my parental failures”.  Like, why isn’t my three and a half year old getting the potty thing.  Or how she is trying to survive completely on milk, juice, pizza, mac n cheese, and breadsticks?  Or that she still doesn’t sleep very well?   Or any other number of smaller issues for which, as the mommy, I should be able to magically fix?

It leads me to wonder, (and I guess this is a phenomenon most particular to first children) that we uncontrollably blame ourselves for stuff that in most cases, we have no or little control over?  I mean, seriously, the kid is healthy, loved, clothed (most of the time), bubbly, intelligent, and has a lot of fun, stimulating things to keep her busy.  Yet I really do feel guilty at times like I’m doing things wrong, or not well enough.  Why is the urge to be supermom (or superdad) so ingrained in our psyches?

The results of the PT conference?  Our tadpole is sociable, friendly, happy, and utterly normal.

Score, K: 1                             Score, my confidence level: 0