Mother's guide to negotiating with a 4-year-old: Let go of the small stuff

Parenting is hard. Being a mother is even harder. Anyone who tells you differently is either delegating or lying. At best you are either failing or being humiliated publicly.

Of course, it's not all bad. Sometimes you can get 13 whole minutes (spread through the day) of the cuddly, loving, gorgeous baby you've always dreamed of.

Beware though, in the space of half a minute it can go from extreme exhilaration of having mad, insane fun together to marvellous meltdowns where you have to remind your riled up, arguing self that you are the calm adult with mountains of patience.

Last week I hit rock bottom. I told my four-year-old, who believes she can survive on water all day, "I don't want to be your mama anymore."

Suddenly she found her sweet little voice again, as opposed to the raging maniac I had been dealing with all morning, and through her tear smeared face whispered, "Then who'll be my mama?"

Maybe I imagined the excited delight in her voice as she repeated the question and demanded an answer of who she was going to trade me in for. Was she as fed up being my daughter as I was done being her mother?

I was about to give her timeout - my deadliest weapon of tantrum destruction (how lucky were our folks that they could whack us at whim without fear of judgment) - till I realised it was me who needed timeout more than her.

Not because I had been shouting and raging too, and probably deserved the punishment more - it was the luxury of being told to sit in a lonely dark corner, in silence without being disturbed and think about what I had done, how sorry I was and how I was going to fix it!

Suddenly all I wanted was timeout, with a glass of wine would be perfect but I'd take it without if that's the deal. That's the thing with parenting, it's uninterrupted and relentless.

I have to live my life between pick-ups and drop-offs and playing secretary to what I'm sure is the busiest toddler in the world.

My daughter has become my No 1 priority and that is not how I imagined it.

Before I had a child I had an opinion (that I often voiced) about everyone else's atrocious parenting. Now I marvel at how mothers make it out of the door in one piece.

I believe I am an excellent mother, a little flawed and a certifiable, demonic, murderous witch at times but, under the circumstances, entirely forgivable.

What gets my goat is that my behaviour is so far removed from what I want it to be. Finishing a book has become akin to climbing Mt Fuji but polishing a bottle of wine is a night's task.

Everything takes a backseat when it comes to her - deadlines, that sought after job interview, the networking gala, date night, travelling to the moon, the book I'm almost about to write and absolutely anything that might give me perspective enough to become a calmer, better parent.

All you smug delegators shaking their heads derisively at me - go read something else because after all, you have the time.

Any parent who says "we made sure that the baby doesn't change our lives" a) needs to be slapped and/or b) could be robots.

They just brought another living thing into the planet, and if this didn't change them then what will?

A visiting French couple, who proudly proclaimed they were as footloose and fancy, free as ever, admitted that sometimes they only caught their baby minutes before it (because really to them it might as well have been) goes to sleep, or a few minutes in the morning before the nanny drops it to daycare.

Though for a few brief seconds this sounds idyllic, I pity them. They are missing out big time: Living their own happy lives when they could be messing up an entirely new one.

Don't be under any illusions my lovely hands-on mothers, our children are mirror images of us. So if you don't dig their rude tone or that manipulative manner - guess where they get it from?

Sometimes when I'm negotiating with my daughter (there's a lot of that in our household) it scares me how innately I recognise the workings of her brain, yet I can't get through.

It reminds me of how as a child, I would stubbornly choose to miss out because of one wrong move.

I remember sitting and waiting for someone to somehow release me from my misery so I could once again be part of the fun.

That release rarely came, or maybe my stubbornness was too hard to penetrate, or that I was one of three, or perhaps I'm colouring my childhood.

I decided to use this frightful repetition of the past as a boon. I could break her pattern if I could just figure out what would have helped me.

A couple of glasses of wine later I was still none the wiser and after a few more I didn't think it really mattered that much because this too shall pass.

That's the key - letting go of the small stuff. And taking a selfish moment of pleasure to un-mush our own brains.

The day I spend undistracted (no phones, no chores) one on one time with her, happily letting her dictate what we will do, I have my angel baby back.

It doesn't last and I'm too rushed to do it all the time. So for most days I'm going to enjoy the 13 intoxicating minutes of pure love that make it all worthwhile and for the remaining 1,427 minutes, call my mother or my mama-friends because mothers are always there.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Also read - Why people don't want to make babies anymore (except Indians)