Do You Have A Parenting Mantra?

Supergirl's birthday is tomorrow. She will be eight years old.
My job is to make her birthday awesomeness even if her world has been turned upside down. Even if she wishes every night so hard that she, my little lithe fragile faerie child, could change the events that happened three months ago.
My little girl has the world on her shoulders.



She wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday. She wrote a letter to her Daddy asking him a number of questions, including, "Why did you hurt Mommy?" and, "Can I please get my ears pierced?"
She later told me she regretted asking one of the questions because she didn't want to make him angry. Which one? "Why did you hurt Mommy?"
My heart broke in a million pieces to watch her try to navigate this mine field into which she landed through no fault of her own.

His probation officer refused to give him the letter; she didn't want to 'get in the middle' of delivering communication. I was livid. There has to be some way to allow the children to send him a letter, I protested!
No. She said that if I wanted, she could ask for a probation review to be moved up on the calendar so we could amend the order to allow some form of communication. I said, "Yes please. This is interfering with our daughter's ability to even process this!"
I tried to explain this to Supergirl. She said, "But the judge is trying to punish Daddy and he is punishing all of us!"

Domestic Violence is very difficult to explain to children. I hope you never have to.




"Why can't we just get my ears pierced?"
"Because we agreed on ten years old before, and because Daddy gets to have an opinion about it too!"
"But Daddy's not here! Why can't I just get them pierced?"
"Because Mommy's taking the high road here he is still your Daddy and gets to help decide things like ear piercing!"


Am I having a hard time taking the high road? Not so much, because I want the children to have a healthy relationship with their father which should not be connected to our togetherness or lack thereof.
But at times...when the bills come in and I freak out because it's hard to stay on top of bills when I have paid three thousand dollars of his debt just to move forward and live here....when I think of how he has not paid one cent to assist his children through this or support them or supply one morsel of food....I need the mantras.



My parenting mantras as the questions come hard and fast:

There is a direct correlation between hearing negative things about a parent and child's self-loathing.

It is better for her to be angry with me than angry with herself.

The best help through any crisis is to be held through it.



These little mantras gets me through everything right now.