Being Pecked by Chickens: Kensi’s Journal 11/6/22

If I wasn’t so tired, maybe I’d see the “wisdom” of Grandmother (or would that be Grandmammy?) Deeks’ words.  Being pecked by chickens, even if it is a slow death, does not sound like an appealing analogy for parenthood.  But Bertie hit the nail on the head with the horrible feeling of not doing enough while simultaneously being exhausted from doing too much.  It actually made me feel better to know Mama D thinks that qualifies me to call myself Rosa’s mother.  Of course, this came on the heels of her telling Rosa all kinds of appropriate-adjacent stories of her past six months on the road, so maybe I shouldn’t put too much stock into what my mother-in-law says about my parenting.

But really, it was nice to be able to be honest with Roberta about my struggles.  I tend to gloss over it with my own mother because I’m just not comfortable talking about my parenting insecurities with her.  After all, by the time I was Rosa’s age I had cut my mother completely out of my life, and even before that I was closer to my father.  Bringing up my worries about raising a teenager to Mom doesn’t seem fair when I didn’t give her the opportunity to raise me through my teen years.