Letting Him Be Dad
I learned a valuable lesson this morning. I learned that my sons don't need me as much as I would love them too and that my husband is a great father. Since the first day of school, I have been meeting my husband and sons at the school door. I've been doing this for no other reason than to micro-manage. I want to make sure their shirts are ironed, hair is brushed and that they've had breakfast. ( I know that's pretty bad.) Since I work early mornings my husband has been taking our kids to school for the last two school years. While there were some kinks in the road ( forgotten lunches, out of uniform instances and sick kids at school), for the most part he's done a great job. And this school year he has really stepped up his game. While my husband's body language this morning told me its time for me to step away and go do my job, it still makes me cringe to think about not going out to meet them every morning.
Being a brown mommy is very tricky. Maternal instincts are very strong in most of us. Because many of us watched mothers, aunts and sisters do parenting solo, I think when we do get married and have children or co-parent with former significant others, it can be difficult to know when to back-off.
I was a single mother prior to getting married, so allowing my husband the space necessary to do his job was a difficult transition for me. I was often preoccupied with him not doing things "the right way" or not putting as much care into things, to realize that he was trying. But, what I'm learning everyday is that men really are from Mars and women are from Venus. That just means that we do things differently and that is okay. Further, I've figured out that my micro-managing only deters him from wanting to do more with the kids.
So starting on Monday, I'm giving myself one more day, I will not be going to the school to see my kids off -- at least I'm going to try. (Or, maybe just once a week.) I'm going to give my husband the credit where credit is due and stop being an overbearing brown mommy.