Acknowledge difficult nature of parenting

Dear Carolyn: I am a single mother to my 1-year-old daughter, and I work at least 45 hours per week to support us. (FWIW, I have plenty of friends and some family who help on a regular basis.) I love her so much, but can’t stop feeling like a bad mother. When I get home from work, it’s so hard to spend quality time with her, because I’m so tired! I feel like I fail at giving her the attention she needs. Also, she pulls my hair, hard. I get so frustrated, sometimes I slap her hand away when she doesn’t listen to my more gentle “no-no’s.” Is this wrong? It feels wrong. I need suggestions. I love her, and I’m feeling really torn up inside. – Washington

Cut your hair and call your pediatrician.

Slapping her hand away is wrong, as is expecting a 1-year-old to take “no” for an answer. Especially when most adults’ grasp of this skill appears to be shaky at best.

But feeling frustrated, tired, inadequate and torn up inside? The only people who feel this as acutely as working parents do are stay-at-home parents. And parents who work part time.

It’s not you; it’s the nature of the job. To weigh this without all the extra emotional freight, recall how you felt in school when you had a term paper due. You could have worked on that paper from the moment it was assigned to the moment it was due, right? Excepting for meals, classes and sleep?

And the harder you worked on it, the better it would be. And so when you weren’t working on it – and you weren’t in the midst of a meal, classes or sleep – you were always aware that you could be working on it. And that if you could be working on it then you should be, because otherwise it wouldn’t be as good as you were capable of making it. And then you’d eat a sleeve of Thin Mints and hate yourself.

There’s no such thing as doing enough. So, you work hard, you acknowledge your limits without making excuses, and you do your best.

The only difference with kids is that your term paper doesn’t care how relaxed you are. But if you feel like you’re failing as a parent, then you churn inside, and then you get tense and snap at your kids. I know, cruel.

That’s why the first thing you need to do is accept your limits. You work. You get tired. You love your little girl. These three things are not mutually exclusive.

So stop trying to cram quality – i.e., maternal perfection, that nasty modern canard – into your baby time, and just spend time with your baby. Put your hair out of reach, and structure your evenings around the assumption that you’ll be tired. Set one goal a night, not 10; feel competent, not crazed. Slow down to a 1-year-old’s pace.

Next, the doctor. Because any parent can feel overwhelmed, and because an overwhelmed parent can threaten a child’s health, a good pediatrician “treats” parents, too, with advice and referrals. Call, please.

Invite a friend over, too, if you’re losing it. Then hang up the phone, get on the floor and fold clothes while your baby unfolds them. Cures everything but a cold.