Stay at home parents

General
1

We all have our various issues with Chiari and some with SM as well. They can vary so much from day to day, that I begin to wonder if my family really understands how difficult this all is for me. Now comes the bitching...

I have a phenomenally eloquent 4 y/o boy, with an energy level I don't ever remember having. I can't keep up with him, but god knows I try. Now he's at that testing his testing the boundaries stage and I have no choice but to handle it alone for the most part, as my wife works full time, and the roommates are also working and in school. So on top of the crazy kid, I also handle all of the household chores. Cleaning and feeding the child, cleaning up after him, walking the dog twice a day (it's all muddy foothills around here) dishes, laundry, litter boxes, trash... all of the chores except for cooking (I don't cook cause I've burned or cut myself waaay too many times without noticing it until my hands are sticky from blood or I smell them burning.)

It would be nice if someone showed some appreciation once in a while.

The kid ends every comment with an insult like jerk or punk, and I know that kids are just naturally rude, but I'm sick of it. If I get angry or raise my voice about it while my wife is around I'm told I'm being abusive, even though the worst I've called him is turd. (I swatted his butt once in 4 years...) Trying to do nice things like read him stories just gets me ignored and god is he ungrateful about the mountains of super hero toys I've bought him. He even has some of my original Star Wars, GI Joe and Transformer toys but all he can say is they are crappy and get him better ones. I've been trying to put my foot down on both fronts, but my boy just wants me to go away, and my wife gets overly defensive.

Now I know that the pain and lack of sleep causes some psychological issues, but I've been doing this for 8 yrs now with the full blown ACM/SM problems and feel I handle it pretty well. All this recent family crap is just depressing me now (all this rain in Portland doesn't help either.)

I don't really see the point in trying to make them happy anymore. Why bother? I get that my wife (I love her and she works so hard for us) is very tired at the end of the day. She works in an emergency animal hospital and does 16 hour days sometimes. I sympathize that she is tired, but only get to sleep in 3 hour or less increments, and deal with the chronic pain. Being a stay at home parent/houskeeper is a full time job, too dammit! Can't even nap anymore because of the pain, and when the boy naps is when I would try to catch up myself, but noooooo. The nerves won't allow it unless I take my full bedtime dose of weed, neurontin, tramodal and tizanidine, and I can't afford that. (I won't open a beer till after 5, but that is part of the ritual too.)

Anyway, thank you all for listening. It is really nice to be able to bitch to people who actually get it instead of those around me who just smile and nod.

2

I am also not an expert in this field, and I very fortunate to have a daughter whom (for the most part) is rather well behaved. However, a very close friend of mine was going through a very similar situation with her son. She and I came up with a system for him that was rather radical, and a mix-match of several “child behavior” books. We stripped his room of EVERYTHING except for his bed, pillows, sheets, & blankets, but we let him keep books. EVERYTHING else was picked up in a giant storage bin, so that his room no longer had games, toys, TV, gaming systems, etc… It was then explained to him that he had the opportunity to EARN everything back by following the rules. We bought a huge dry erase board and wrote out all of the rules he was expected to obey. When he followed the rules and acted respectfully, he was rewarded with a smaller toy or game from the bin. If he did this for one week straight, he was rewarded with a bigger toy or game from the bin. As he earned things back, he knew they could be taken away for misbehaving. Same principle applied: smaller offenses meant loosing smaller things & larger offenses meant loosing larger things, until you reached the stripped room again. With my friend’s son, she only stripped his room once. He learned the punishment/reward system very quickly, and he was only a few months older than your son when she did this. He is 9 now, and she passes this advise on to every frustrated mom she meets. I don’t know if it would work for you, because obviously, your wife would have to be “on board” with this program. Either way, I hope that something can be worked out so that you feel valued, respected, and appreciated by both your wife and your children. Have y’all considered any type of marriage counseling? I am so sorry that you are suffering with both physical and emotional pain. I will be praying for you!

3

I'm a stay at home mom and it is the hardest job I have ever had. I have an 11 yr old daughter who is very dramic this is not knew just getting worse. Sometimes I want to pull her hair out. She has to help around the house (clean her room and bathroom and keep the livingroom clean). I could not get her to clean her room right (stufing in corneres) so one day while she was at school I cleanded her room out. Now she has to earn back her things by doing what she is told and helping me more we I feel bad. I has not worked as well as I would like but it has helped.

4

You guys are awesome! I do appreciate all of the advice, and I am definately going to try some of these techniques.

Perhaps things are not as bad as I percieve them. Maybe I'm just tired. I really need to call my mom and thank her for everything she did...

What I think might help is to not get so upset or offended that nobody around me gets it. Gets what all this is like, you know? It's not their fault - they are just not ever going to fully appreciate how much this all sucks.

But you guys do.

Thank you.