She came bursting through the front door yelling.
“Mom I am SO mad at you right now!”
Words I do not like to hear. I followed her to the kitchen and noticed her visible distress.
“What happened?”
“M just got back from G’s birthday party. I missed it!”
She immediately started crying.
“No, her party is next weekend – on the 19th.”
I pulled the invitation out from the pile of papers on the counter as she continued to meltdown that it was today.
It was. And we had missed it. Not even late – but totally missed it.
My stomach sank. I had messed up. Maybe not in a big way — but enough to make my daughter feel like I had failed her. She had been looking forward to this party and in her eyes I had majorly screwed up.
It was the worst feeling in the world. I had let my daughter down, and there was nothing I could do to rewind time and fix the problem.
As we sat on the floor, her crying in my arms, I told her how sorry I was and how awful I felt. It was purely accidental.
When we let ourselves down it can be devastating. We beat ourselves up over it. But as humans we are quick to resolve that there is nothing we can do about it. As a parent, when you unintentionally let your child down and see the disappointment reflected in their eyes, it hurts. It can shatter your soul from the inside and tear up your heart in ways you didn’t know could happen. The emotional hurt hurts worse than any physical pain I have felt.
And the reality is that this is not the first or the last time that this will happen. That I will let her down. It is the reality of being a parent. It will happen whether we want it to or not. And although our job as parents is to not keep our children in a constant state of being pleased — it still hurts when the disappointment is unintentional.
As we pulled ourselves together and picked each other up off the floor, she forgave me. She knew I didn’t do it on purpose and knew it wasn’t the end of the world. There will be other parties. With a quick hug, she was back out the door to be with her friends.
For me it was an important couple of lessons. The most obvious – double check party dates and put things in my planner. The less obvious – this will happen again, and when it does it is okay. We are parents but we are not always perfect, and that is okay.
