A baby is sleeping on my chest, supported by one arm. The time between typing and hitting “post” changes with a newborn.

I was reading something on the parenting board I’ve been codependently hanging out on. (I want to feel like I can “help” someone and I’m physically incapacitated. I know! I’ll go give advice to internet strangers!) One of the ‘known names’ (i.e. people who post so much that everyone knows their story and references them between threads) made a comment about her mother rugsweeping her father’s physical abuse and my response was that I wish I could slap the shit out of her mother.

I didn’t have the reaction that I wanted to hurt her father.

That’s a thing. That’s a whole societal thing.

(Break for poopy diaper and outfit change and now we are nursing.)

Whether the mother is the main instrument of abuse or the enabler… we blame her first, most, and often only her. Mothers are responsible for protecting their children. A child being hurt is the fault of the mother. No matter who does it.

I think about this a lot. Do I blame my mother most? This dynamic is on the gigantic list of reasons I homeschool.

It’s not really about whether I physically, mentally, sexually, emotionally, or spiritually abuse my kids… It’s about whether I can keep it from happening at all.

The funny (to me) part is I have agreements with Noah around him intervening in *my* behavior. I am monitored. He has told me things I needed to change. That’s good. If I go off the rails I have to leave for the good of the kids and we’ve skirted that before. He warned me I was heading that way.

I got the fuck back on the rails.

I’m not sure I’m actually temperamentally suited to the job I chose. But I’m going to force myself into that mode if it kills me. But instead of killing me it is healing me.

I woke up overwhelmingly cranky and with a long list of complaints. Noah suggested a walk. I’m less bitchy now. Over a mile this time! And it didn’t hurt! We’ve been doing just under a mile and it’s been real slow and hard. This felt better.

Noah doesn’t get mad at me for my moodiness. I don’t know what I did right to get him. I know that saying yes was important. (Technically I didn’t say yes I said “Yeah, I could do that.”) But what did I do to make him want me so bad?