It's my type, bitches!

In my on-going pursuit of parental knowledge, I recently read "Mother Styles" by Janet Penley. Let me tell you, it was well worth the time and energy. I highly recommend it to mothers who want to understand themselves a little better or who are dying to take a Cosmo-type quiz but find the "Are you a tiger in bed" quizzes not quite germane enough. Ever wonder why you do or say some of the things you do? This might help. I discovered a lot of things about myself that have made my subsequent days a little easier. Maybe not always better, but certainly easier. And as a bonus, I learned a few things about D, who reluctantly and begrudgingly - and later rather enthusiastically - flipped through the pages and identified his parenting style, too. Apparently, after ten years, you can still learn things about each other.

For those of you familiar with personality tests, this is essentially a Jung/Myers-Brigg test where the questions ask you to reflect on the way in which you mother, instead of say, how you behave at work. Basically you take these sort of quizzes in each category that ask questions along the lines of "When the noise level is your home starts to escalate (baby is crying, cat is under foot meowing for food, dog is barking at the plumber who is at the door ringing the bell even though the door is open and he can see you through the screen door, and your husband is asking you where the checkbook is while you are trying your damnedest to make a delicious and nutritious meal as breast-milk slowly leaks through your bra, all while your guests sit on the couch and wonder WTF?!?) do you want to crawl out through the blocked and shit-filled pipes that aforementioned plumber is here to fix, or do you thrive on chaos?" Guess which one I chose. Yeah. Situations like this, I want to kill myself. And I used to think that it was because I was a total weirdo, but no! It turns out that it's my "type." Whew.

Actually, it turns out that I am a weirdo and that it's my type. My type makes up something like 1-4% of the population. Yeah, I'm in the minority. Again. But luckily, because I am who I am, I'm ok with it. Think I'm too strict about my kid's sugar intake? Go fuck yourself. It's my type. Think that I should let my kid skip his nap so that you can order one more beer? Again, go fuck yourself. Think that I should put my newly hatched first-born in his pack n play just so that you, an adult, can have my full attention while you blather on pointlessly about I don't even know what? Well, guess what?!? GO FUCK YOURSELF! Because I'm an INTJ.*

The self-reflection was somewhat difficult at times and to get the most accurate result possible, it actually took me a few days. I would read a section and come back to it after letting it stew in my brains for a bit. And there were some categories where I didn't clearly fall on one side or the other. At least I didn't think I did. Turns out, I do. I dance the thin line between Thinking and Feeling, but after the other day, it was confirmed that I am more on the Thinking side when my poor, sweet sister was standing in my kitchen talking about how she's had such a rough week since my great-aunt died and I had to remind myself not to stare at her as if she had cabbage on her tooth. Clearly, my sister was having a perfectly normal reaction here. I wasn't judging her for that. I just can't relate. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE(d) my great-aunt. Hell, I named my kid after her. And while it makes my heart hurt that Tia is longer with us, she hadn't been with us for a long time. She was old, she was the last surviving sibling (out of 11!) and she was living a life she would have never wanted for herself. I was sad for me, but I was happy and relieved for her. So it was hard for me to relate to A when she stood in my kitchen, days after my aunt had passed, and was still so visibly upset. Yeah, I'm definitely T, not F.

I worried as I read Mother Styles and had these hysterical epiphanies (yes, I do have a very tenuous grip on how long things should take and end up always being way too early for fear of being late!) that I would use the things I learned as an excuse...but no, I find myself using it more like a pep talk of sorts. For example, I am painfully, undeniably an introvert. But now that I know that, now that I know what that looks like and what that means and what I need to do for myself to honor that, I'm better able to function like a normal human being in an extrovert setting. In part because I know it's temporary. In part because I know that I'm a little uncomfortable not because I'm weird (well, not exclusively because I'm weird) but because I'm an introvert. I'm not mean, I'm a thinker. I'm not a control freak, I'm a judger. Get it?

As a person who loves information and craves knowledge, especially when it's impact is concrete and positive, I really enjoyed this book. I found it liberating to read. I found the reminders (get time to yourself, by yourself and don't wait to be done with everything because you will NEVER be done!) so very necessary. D laughed at me because he's been telling me some of the same things - I think one of the reasons he liked the book was because it backed him up - but do I listen to him? Noooo...a book has to tell me what to do. But seriously and most importantly, if even one thing I learned makes me a better mother, well then, it was worth the time and energy...and having to face the fact that I am, indeed, just a little bit weird. But I'm ok with that...because it's my type.

* Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging. Look it up - you might just learn something.