Wendy please don’t cry over a snapshot of Madonna’s life
Madonna is in hot water again and this time the star is under fire for using the "n" word in a tweet to her son. Interestingly, was Madonna's close relationship with her son Rocco, the subject of the tweet, that made talk show host, Wendy Williams break down crying on her show as tried to talk about the latest controversy.
In between sobs Wendy said, "What I discovered this weekend is that my son doesn’t like me anymore." As a mother, my heart went out to her because I can only imagine how devastated she felt. However, I can only empathize with her so much because she is doing a disservice to her son and their relationship by comparing him to Madonna's son, Rocco.
It's natural to do some sort of comparison in order to get a benchmark of our child's development. So I do understand where Wendy is coming from and I've fallen into the comparison trap myself but while it's normal part of motherhood, it is an unproductive one. The comparisons never seem to stop. We compare our children's developmental milestones to our friend's kids when they are little and grades and behavior when they are older. I've since found out that even grandma's continue the comparative behavior!
There's one major problem in using other people's children as a benchmark -- most of us don't realize that we are comparing our child to a snapshot of another child. Wendy has no idea if Madonna is close to her son or if their seemingly close relationship is even healthy or normal. It could be that Madonna rarely sees Rocco since she share's custody with his dad and is often away on tour while Wendy is home with her son and husband. When we start the comparison, it's best to remind ourselves that what we see is one moment in time of someone else's life.
We know that comparing our own selves to others is a surefire way to damage our self-esteem, yet we still do it to our children. It is a bad parenting habit that all of us, including Wendy, need to break because comparing our kids may damage their self-esteem:
As your child gets older, he or she will develop different interests, talents and strengths. Your neighbour’s son may be brilliant at basketball while your son doesn’t play for any of the school’s sports teams. Avoid comparing the two. Holding him to someone else’s standard could be detrimental to your child’s self-esteem.
Rather than seeing what other children are good at, try to help your child to identify and nurture his or her interests and talents, which may be totally different to those of his or her friends or siblings. Let them know that you are proud of their achievements, however big or small.
Luckily, Wendy intellectually understands that her son is going through a stage where he is closer to his but it seems she needs to emotionally connect with the fact that he is going through the stage where he wants to be around his dad more. I would suggest my go to child development book, "It's a boy!:Your Son's Development from Birth to Age 18 ", which I've used to understand my 5 year-old and my 12 twelve year-old nephew.
In the book, psychologist Michael Thompson describes that there's "an almost universal yearning in boys eleven to thirteen for a closer relationship with their fathers." This is a universalism that as mothers we must unfortunately accept. It's something that I am definitely not looking forward to.
I would love to hear what you think about Wendy's breakdown and I would especially like to hear from moms who are going through the "I don't need a mom" stage right now.
Yardyspice
Follow me over to Blackmothering.com, a blog for black moms raising 21st century kids. My blog deals with home-schooling, disciplining with the Love and Logic technique, and issues that are specific to black children.