Parenting with epilepsy

Parenting is a difficult, fulltime, lifelong job (just ask my mum). It is full of tears, tantrums, thrown toys and seriously rubbish attitudes, and that is just from the parents! Parenting doesn’t get any easier the older the children get, their needs just change and, as a result, so does your parenting style and parental challenges.

I wouldn’t say parenting with epilepsy is any harder than parenting without it, it just brings a different set of challenges and obstacles for you to overcome.

Aside from the health and safety risks that can sometimes occur (that’s a topic for another blog) I think one of the biggest challenges epilepsy brings to the parenting world is the feeling that as a parent you are not good enough. Feeling that you are in some way letting your child/children down because of your condition. You suddenly feel like a failure because you must cancel a fun day out after a seizure, or you can’t go on all the big rides at the theme park. The memory issues you have as a side effect of medication make you forget about world book day and you end up sending your child to school wearing an old pillow case and praying they will pass for Casper. You feel like you’re letting your teen down because you can’t drive them to their first job or you forget to buy deodorant for them when you go shopping and spend an entire day imagining your teen being ostracized for smelling of dusky roses instead of Lynx.

It is hard to feel like a failure, especially when all you want is the best for those you care about. Parenting is made even harder by those parents that appear “perfect” and seem to have all their crap together. We all know the ones I mean. They arrive at the school gates 10 minutes early, perfectly dressed and singing songs from the sound of music. Wonder mum hand sews all her little darling’s world book day outfits, only feeds her children organic, home grown, homemade lunches and manages to knock out 60 gluten, wheat and dairy free cupcakes for the school bake sale while teaching her offspring Swahili. Meanwhile, you’re rocking up to the school gates as the bell rings, wearing yesterdays make up, carrying lunchboxes containing more processed food than Asda. Wonder mum takes great pride in telling you that her teenager volunteers twice a week at the local donkey sanctuary, has a personal tutor for French, just to make sure they get that A*, and is captain of both the chess and football teams. Meanwhile, you’re just hoping your teen remembered to shower that morning. With or without epilepsy, who wouldn’t feel like a failure when compared to wonder mum.

 Here is the reality. EVERY PARENT, wonder mother included, will feel like a failure at some point. I can pretty much guarantee that every parent, even Theo’s mum with her homemade lunches, has fed their child a McDonalds because they haven’t had time to make dinner, or has bribed their offspring with a bar of chocolate and a packet of quavers. Anyone who tells you they haven’t is winding you up. Children, of all ages, are not remotely interested in whether their carrot sticks are homegrown or if the bread is organic. They don’t care if the cakes they are taking to the bake sale are handmade or a morrisons special, just if they have something to take. Homegrown veggies don’t make a child happy, love does. If you love your child unconditionally, teach them right from wrong and ensure they are fed and watered, you are not failing as a parent. So what if dinner came from the takeaway two nights in a row, dinner is dinner, homemade of store bought. It doesn’t matter. Epilepsy might make you put plans on hold, it might stop you doing everything you would like to do with your family, and believe me I understand the frustration in that, but memories can be made anywhere, even in your own living room or back garden.

My biggest piece of advice to parents with epilepsy that feel like they are failing is to stop comparing yourself to others, parenting is not easy for anyone, even Theo’s mum. As long as your children are happy and healthy you are doing an amazing job. Hold your head up high when you hand over the store-bought cupcakes, laugh when your teen has to borrow your deodorant. Be proud of your children and proud of yourself. Sometimes just managing to get out of bed when you have epilepsy is a challenge, so if you are in some way managing to raise children, I would say you are most definitely winning at life!!