There is no singular story behind feeling badly, because when you become a mother, you sign up (unknowingly) for a lifetime of feeling like shit. Birth a kid or get one another way: your guilt ramps up no matter how you conceive, and also, the minute you do.
Currently, my three Drunk Kids want nothing to do with me.
Sometimes, I even think they hate me.
I am definitely the bad cop.
I have no idea how, or desire, to change that.
The Kid is the good cop.
We can talk circles and squares around it, but the truth is that I'm better at the bad cop. I have more patience to be mean. He's more willing to go Chuck E Cheese: he wants to give them what they want.
I do too -- just not all.the.time.
We weigh our ways and wishes and balance them between our kids. It works.
Mostly.
Sometimes I get tired of my badcop-ness. Sometimes I want to let someone else be the heavy. I want to be the "fun" parent and not the mean one who is around to make homework happen or chores checked off.
On the weekends, for example, I'd like to be the one who monitors bowling or soccer or playground fun. I'd like to come home to a house ready for the week ahead -- laundry done and delivered, dust sent and gone, toilets scrubbed, beds made, dinner on the table.
I'd like to be the good cop.
