When children start to grow up
When children start to grow up, they start to move away from you. I guess I just thought it won't happen so early to me.
When my daughter was little, and honestly most of her life, I always have done everything for my daughter. I never regretted it. She is most likely going to be my only child. So for me it was my only chance. Though as she is getting older, I know that her independence is also important. She needs to know that she can do things for herself. So I have been getting her to do more and more things for herself. I realized, and always have, that it would mean that she would pull away from me a little bit. It was something that I have been prepared for. Though I always thought that we were very close. I guess I thought that we could overcome it, because we were so close. At least for a few years. I figured it would be a few years before she started pulling away. At least until she was a teenager. Yet here I am. She is only 7, and yet I feel like she is pulling away. Already she doesn't want to listen to me. I am finding myself getting frustrated.
I have done so much for her. To give her a good life, to provide, to protect her. In many ways, she is all I got. So now that she won't listen to me, and I feel like I am loosing her in a way, I am not handling it well. I am frustrated, and only getting more and more depressed. The feeling that I have no one it's helping me to repair. I am trying to gain my own strength. Trying to find that fight in me to get better to prove to everyone that I am better than they thought. Usually I am able to. Able to pull myself up through the darkness and find the fight to be the best, to be better than they thought. However, I am finding it harder to do this time around.
Living with my family isn't helping either. You would think that it would. That it would help to have people around to talk to. In a way it does, but in a way it very much doesn't. The funny thing is that I know that if I lived alone again that I won't have anyone to talk to at all. Not sure if that would be good or bad.
An example is I made a Disney movie bucket list. My daughter really wants to go to Disney, and I wanted her to see all the movies before we go. Seeing as I haven't booked it, I figured I had time. However, she never wants to watch the movie with me. I always end up watching it alone as she goes to talk to my parents. Yesterday, my mother taped the movie Up to watch with my daughter. And my daughter, excited, watched the movie with her. She wasn't able to watch the whole thing, as she had to go to bed. So now I get to go through this again today as they finish. The fact that she would watch a movie with my mother and not with me, I'm not going to lie, made me jealous I guess. Especially with how much they pick on her. Every day I have to listen to her getting upset because they took her toys, and they think it's funny. But then she so badly wants to show them things, and spend time with them, and less with me. I know that I'm not helping this, as my depression gets worse, and I have less and less desire for things. I know that I shouldn't feel this way. My mother is very sick, and almost never leaves the house. I know that I should be find with it, happy even. The more people in my daughter's life the better. At least my mother has something, or someone, to spend time with.
However, I also can't help but to wonder what about me. When will someone just care about me truly? When will I be important?
I know logically that it's not that I am not important to my daughter. However, I also can't help how I feel. I can't help the feeling that I'm not really important to anyone. Does that sound crazy? Am I crazy for how I am feeling?
To be honest, I don't know. I feel selfish for feeling this way. I also know that I am not helping the situation. The thing is that I don't know how to help the situation. In my head, I play out conversations with my family after things happen to me. When the time comes, I just can't get the words out. My stress with everything that I dealing with causes me to shut down. The feeling that I am totally on my own isn't helping. I know it's selfish to think that I should always be the number one person in my daughter's life. She's only 7 though. Don't I deserve a few more years at least?
-T
About the Creator
Talara Nolan
I am a single parent to a 4 year old girl and live with her in Canada. I love working out and have lost over 45 lbs over time. I would love to share what I have learned and all the things that have worked for me over time.
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By Talara Nolan17 days ago in Families
Comments (1)
Since you have been the most important and loving person in your daughter's life, and there for her all the time, I think it's only natural she'll want to spend time with others besides you. We as humans crave all different kinds of connections. I hope you don't take offense to this, but in your writing here you do come across a little controlling, at the least greatly overprotective, and I think that can drive a child away. Especially if you're letting it read on your face or through your energy that you're deeply unhappy she's spending time with others. That being said, your feelings are absolutely understandable! Don't worry, Mom, you're still her number one and I'm sure she knows that. She's just trying to get closer with others too now.