Mad Props to Single Parents
I don’t know how single parents do it. I’m embarrassed to confess the rage that surfaces in me when my eight-week-old baby daughter won’t stop screaming her head off. The thoughts that go through my mind after listening to an hour of non-stop wailing would get me arrested if the authorities knew. There are times that I’m pretty sure our daughter wouldn’t have survived if my wife hadn’t walked in the door at the very moment that I was about to throw the kid through a window. 
Should I feel guilty about these feelings? Does everyone feel like this? I know that at least one writer/parent does. Anne Lamott writes about her son, Sam in her book, Operating Instructions:
He’s so fine all day, so alert and beautiful and good, and then the colic kicks in. I’m okay for the first hour, more or less, not happy about things but basically okay, and then I start to lose it as the colic continues. I end up incredibly frustrated and sad and angry. I have had some terrible visions lately, like of holding him by the ankle and whacking him against the wall, the way you “cure” an octopus on the dock. I have gone so far as to ask him if he wants me to go get the stick with the nails… I have never hurt him and don’t believe I will, but I have had to leave the room he was in, go somewhere else, and just breathe for a while, or cry, clenching and unclenching my fists.
When I first read this book while Jill was pregnant, I thought, “Sheesh, can’t you be the rational adult in the situation? Babies cry. That’s what they do.”
Now, I say, I feel you Anne Lamott. I feel you.
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2 comments so far
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When you get a free moment (HAHAHAHA!) breeze through some of my archives. That whole “Bad Mommy, Good Mommy” thing may help you. You’re not alone with those, “OMG! Did I just think that?!” moments, I promise. You see, the Good Daddy THINKS about chucking the child out the window. The Bad Daddy DOES chuck the child out the window.
It also helps to remember that many babies have a “fussy period” toward the end of the day. It’s all the stimulation catching up to them that their immature little nervous systems can’t process, all that energy pent up, etc. It’s normal for a lot of babies and they DO outgrow it. 
You’re totally normal.
Oooooh man. I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about. When I think about the things I uttered under my breath while trying to soothe my crying baby daughter… Yeah, I guarantee it scarred me more than it scarred her.
Don’t be afraid to just leave the room. Leaving the room, letting her cry, it does wonders. Turn the monitor off, too. Or at least down so all you can see is the light. She won’t remember that you let her cry in her crib for a couple hours.
There were times, when I was carrying her in the living room, trying to get her to stop wailing, that I would just say, “OK!”, lay her on the floor and just walk away. It was the best thing for both of us.