Dec 19, 2019
You know what drives me crazy?
Numbing is what. I will tell you why.
If we don’t know each other yet, I am Hanna, founder of Mamatoto.
I’m really happy you are here :)
Why does numbing drive me nuts, and what do I mean?
You know when parents roll their eyes when there is a difficult moment with their kids and say something to the effect “Mommy needs wine” and other parents nod and smile, click like and maybe even share. Whether in real life or on social media. Same same.
We get it, parenting is hard, let’s all drink, ignore the actual issue and make fun.
For me, this is problematic on several levels.
First I am going to be a super bummer and many of you guys who like to have a drink or two or five and don’t want anyone to challenge you on that will probably stop watching this video right now.
Still here, great, I will tell you something serious, and then I will encourage you to consider drinking or however you choose to numb yourself in a way that doesn’t harm you or the people around you. Especially your kids.
I am not here to tell you not to drink. I am asking you, as a kid who grew up around addiction and have seen all its ugly sides, to rethink how and why you drink.
And to never, ever in a million years blame parenting or your kids for your drinking.
When something is hard, in parenting that can be a lot of things, the way to solve it is not around, it’s through.
Your kid is anxious about something at school? Approach it from all sides, find out what is different, how you can adjust it and support them. The easy thing is to get low key angry, irritated and tell them to stop, in one way or another. And then say “mommy needs wine” get nods of approval and think you are on the right parenting track.
I can assure you that you are not.
Whatever the thing that makes you need a drink is, turning away from it does two things:
It makes your kid feel less heard, more invisible.
It creates a rift between you. You can guess what happens with time.
How can you drink in a positive way?
Think of it like this: Mommy doesn’t need a drink, Mommy wants to have a drink with a friend/partner/in the bath with a good book.
Not as a punishment to the people around her.
Not as a punishment to herself. Don’t ever do that. Let that shit go. Seriously.
Not to compensate for some other crap going on.
Kids do what you do, not what you say. What are you modeling to them?
I would love for you to think about the reasons you use whatever you use to numb yourself and how it affects you and the people around you.
I did, and it was a big moment of self reflection for me, and I chose a path I wouldn’t have thought was right for me, but that now feels like exactly where I needed to go. Wanna know what it is? Let me know and I might tell you :)