I used to think I understood what good mothering and bad mothering was. I used to think “like my mother” meant bad. I don’t think that any more. I keep coming back to this Valentine’s Day card I bought for my mother when I was… 23? Around there. I forget exactly. I didn’t give it to my mother. The text says something like, “With every passing year I see that I’m more like you.”

I really am like my mother. But I recently just got a gold star. A good grade on my report card. I was told I’m doing good. I am so much like my mother. What does that mean then?

Maybe being like my mother isn’t all bad.

My mother is an organizer. She can organize stuff and people but people scare her more. She’s had a lot of bad experiences with people so she tends to stick to stuff. I learned that from her. I’m passing it down to my children. I think my Eldest Child will be better at organizing people than I am and I’m several steps up from my mother. But it comes from my mother. Youngest Child (who will need a new nickname at some point–I stopped using their first names for a variety of reasons, including that casual readers constantly asked me to clarify birth order and that’s annoying) seems like someone who will stick with stuff. Kiddo isn’t people oriented in the same way.

Some day my child is going to hate me for believing that they aren’t much of a people person. I can see the writing on the wall. It isn’t that Kiddo has no interest in people it is that Kiddo is very ok with having just a few people around. Kiddo doesn’t need to be broadly popular. As long as Kiddo has a few people in their corner, Kiddo thinks the world is alright. Eldest Child needs everyone to be around and involved. Everyone.

Both kids want me to get my $#!t together and start hosting stuff again because we’d like to see friends more often. But destroyed house. This is not a “Yes” environment and it’s stressful and difficult for everyone. Not to mention that not having a toilet really sucks. We don’t need more people using up the port-a-pottie capacity seeing as technically… we use it more than it is supposed to be used.

Anyway.

I know people who maintain social lives during large scale remodels. I know people who have serious remodels take years and years and I don’t know how they survive that without some serious violence. This is frustrating as fuck.