First Time Mom of Three

I’ll admit it.  I can be a bit of a helicopter mom.

I talk to my girlfriends with several children and they seem surprised by my anxiety.

But they are only mellow because they’ve been through any given stage before.

Everyone knows you’re more relaxed with your second, third, or fourth child.

So they expect me to be less uptight.

Not so.  In addition to my natural inclination for uptightness, I have three kids a total of TWO MINUTES apart.  Each one is my first child!

Every single stage is brand new to me.  All of the challenges that come with any given age, come to me times three.  I’ll have moms say to me, oh well my kid skipped that particular issue or stage, but with three of them in the same stage, YOU DON’T SKIP ANY issue or stage.

Right, moms of multiples?  Because if one kid doesn’t go through it, another one inevitably does.  And if one kid doesn’t pick up that bad habit or attitude, the one who did pick it up will teaches it to the others.

This is why they were in toddler beds well before I wanted them to be.  The crazy eldest climbed out of his crib before age two, and then the little lady watched him and she followed suit, and then the baby on the other side watched her and figured it out!

This first-time-mom-anxiety became readily apparent to me this weekend at swim team practice.  I ended up chatting with a really cool mom who has three kids of her own as well as her husband’s three kids.  Between the six kids, they range in ages from 4 to 13.  I expressed my concern over how the new coach was really driving the 5-6 year old swim team.  My kids had come home stressed out by the coach’s warning they could not touch the bottom of the pool or the rope during the race.  As I’ve written, 25 meters is a long haul for my little swimmers, and I’m not particularly interested in them getting ulcers as a result of swim team.

This momma of six said this in response, I’m kind of glad the coach is unforgiving.  My kids need that as a goal.  Then they’ll get to the swim meet and see all the other 5-6-ers touching the bottom and the rope and they’ll know it’s okay.  But at least they’ll be driven to try to get to the other side.  I think if we cater to our kids too much, they don’t adapt to change and aren’t very flexible which makes life harder.

Whoa!

I felt like I should have paid her an hourly rate for her advice.

We kids of the ’70s didn’t have parents helicopter-ing us and we survived.  We rode bikes without helmets and our teachers spanked us and our friends hurt our feelings and we wore ridiculous clothes and hairstyles, and we survived.

I know as a first child, my mother was more attentive and nervous to me.  In fact, she was likely more attentive and nervous that most ’70s parents.  But relatively, we had a low key childhood of swimming all day in the summer and reading books through the winter.

However, something happened that made our generation of mothers, especially we first time moms, pretty stressed out.  Add in to those generational stressors the fact my kids regularly play/work at a farm and a ranch, entirely unfamiliar territory for me, and you’ve got a first time momma times ten.

Where do I go from here?

First, I’m going to be okay with the fact I am more uptight than most moms with three kids because I’m still a first time mom, and every age and stage is brand new for me.  You will likely find me curled under my desk for a week in August when they ALL THREE start kindergarten at the same time.

 

But second, I’m going to try to chill.  A little. Not to the level of a momma with multiple kids in multiple ages, but to the level of a first time momma a few decades ago.  I’m still going to kiss boo-boos and make every recital and tee ball game, but I’m not going to send frantic notes to the head of swimming or Pre-K or soccer or whoever else they encounter if they are having a hard time.

I had LOTS of hard times as a kid.  As a result, I’m pretty resilient.  I don’t want to take away my kids ability to fail and then bounce back.  I’m a huge proponent of failure as a learning technique, and so we first time moms of this millennium are going to need to get comfortable with their frustration and struggles and failures and relationship challenges.

You may have to remind me every now and again though.  After all, I am a first time mom {of three}.