I’m going to confirm that I’m a mildly bad parent and just say that there are days when I really don’t like my kids.

Like honestly and truly do not like them.

I still love them, but I’m convinced that love and like aren’t the same thing.

Sometimes kids are hard to like and I’m tired of feeling guilting about it. 

Let me give you a for instance.

Earlier this week I was putting away the boys’ laundry.

I really hate laundry. I hate how it never ends, how you think you’ve done it all, but because your family isn’t sitting around naked there is actually more to do, I hate how it just multiples as it sits in the basket mocking me, just the whole thing.

So I had done the boys’ laundry and was getting ready to put it away… which means I’d been psyching myself up for a bit. I am happy to make homemade meals all day, but I’d rather cut off my hand than do laundry, trust me, it takes a lot of willpower to not make laundry someone else’s problem.

So I’m unhappily putting away the mountain of clothes while listening to a podcast and AsthmaMan comes in and turns Old Town Road on his echo dot.

I hate that song more than I hate laundry.

I ask him to please wait until I’m done to play his music.

He refuses and turns up the volume.

I turn it off.

He turns it on and up.

You get where this is going.

Eventually I tell him that unless he wants to put his own laundry away he needs to keep the music off until I leave but that he’s welcome to go listen to the song on any of the other echo dots in the house.

He unplugs the echo dot and throws it at my head.

Yes… you read that correctly… he threw it at my head.

Luckily he’s 5 and didn’t pay much attention in baseball so he missed and hit the window which miraculously did not break.

Unfortunately Alexa didn’t break either and that song continued to play throughout the next few days… well until Mr. Spreadsheets decided he also hated it and now it’s been blocked.

Ok but in that moment where I’m doing laundry and my kid is being awful, I didn’t like him.

At all.

Yep.

Occasionally (or daily) I find myself in these situations where I think, you are a tiny little jerk and I just do not like you.

I made the mistake of telling Harry Potter something like this recently, I told you I am a mildly terrible parent.

He was being well terrible and I told him I didn’t like him much at that moment and he looked shocked and appalled.

He asked why I didn’t like him and then we were both dumbfounded… um because you’re being awful.

Anyway it was a good moment for him, don’t you love when your bad parenting becomes a “teachable” moment? I explained that while I love him and am willing to sacrifice just about anything for him I don’t particularly enjoy being yelled at, having things thrown at me, or any number of obnoxious things from him. He’s been better.

This was a revelatory moment for him. You could see the lightbulb go off, it clicked, “Hey my mom doesn’t think being obnoxious is fun!”… no kidding Sherlock.

So there are moments when I don’t like my kids.

I feel like I’m far enough into this parenting gig that I can admit it. Sometimes they’re little jerks.

And sometimes they’re amazing human beings.

We all have our moments.