My 17 yr old daughter is a better mother than I am

I am 38 with two daughters, a 17 yr old and a 5 yr old. The older one was a breeze to raise. As an infant she only cried based on whether or not she was hungry, peed, or tired, an easy fix always. As a child she always did everything I asked immediately, kept her room clean, held my hand when we crossed the street, said please and sorry, was generally very quiet and sweet. I mistakenly felt very good about myself because I thought such a lovely child meant that I was a really good parent. And then came my second.She’s... much different. I did not sleep for the first six months of her life. I became so used to the sounds of deafening shrieks that I began to hear them when they weren’t there. Tantrums happen at least three times a day. She will go out of her way to specifically NOT do what you tell her to do. She runs away from me in public, makes huge messes and refuses to clean them or pick up after herself, and generally just makes life so much harder.Here’s the thing: I feel like I can’t handle it and I’m on the verge of curling into a ball and sobbing, and then in walks my older daughter, sees the situation, and she rolls her eyes and fixes it within a minute.She knows EXACTLY how to diffuse a tantrum. She knows how to make her do something in a second when it takes me an hour of back and forth. At first when she was a little smaller I thought it was because she was used to me nagging her but not her sister and that “scared” her more. Now that I’ve been seeing how my daughter handles more and more situations as she gets older, I know it’s just plain and simple because she’s better at this than I am.We went to Target. 5 yr old was in the cart and saw a toy as we walked by. She demanded that she wanted it and I said no because she had just bought a new toy yesterday and I’m not going to be buying toys for her everyday. Cue instant tantrum. Screaming at the top of her lungs so that other shoppers were staring and whispering to each other. It was so humiliating and I was desperately trying to shush her and I even yelled at her and she just wouldn’t stop and I started to have a meltdown of my own and I was already letting a few tears fall down my cheeks.Then came my 17 yr old. She grabbed her and pulled her out of the cart and made her stand up. She knelt down to eye level with her and said in a very low, even voice “This is going to stop RIGHT now. I’m not going to yell at you, I’m not going to hit you, and I’m definitely not about to argue with a five year old. We’re going to stand here until you start behaving like you have a family at home that teaches you how to act right.”Cue a few moments of more wails, except they’re gradually getting a little quieter and unsure.“Are you done?”“I want it!!” (the toy)“You’re not going to get it, because you have plenty of toys at home, and a bed, and food, and a family that loves you. I don’t feel sorry for you right now. You’re a very lucky little girl. So we’re going to keep standing here until you’re done, because me and mama have other things to do than wait for you to remember how you’re supposed to act in public.”About a minute later, the sobs were gone.“Are you done?”“...Yeah.”“Okay. Wipe those tears and get a big girl face on so you can help us pick some new blankets.”And then... the show went on. As if nothing had ever happened. I spent the rest of the shopping trip staring at my daughter in amazement, wondering why I couldn’t just do that myself. She made it look so easy. She makes EVERYTHING look so easy. There’s always an immediate simple solution that I never see. Here I am thinking I’ve tried everything because I tried to nicely ask her to stop, distract her with other things, and even freak out and yell in her face. Turns out I completely forgot to just speak to her in a low, firm, authoritative voice? Even when I try to imitate the way my daughter speaks when she’s disciplining, I can never find the right words. She knows EXACTLY what to say and I fumble around.I want to brush it off as me not having any practice with disciplining children because my first child never needed any discipline, but neither has my daughter. She’s not a mother. And yet it comes so naturally to her.Oh - even when the small one falls down she handles it better than me. My immediate knee jerk reaction is to yelp and scurry over and worry, then cue the screaming. When my daughter hit her head on the wall corner, not hard enough to cause injury but enough to scare her and make her eyes go all big and think “time to freak out”, my daughter leaned down and smiled at her and said in a happy voice “It’s okay, you’re fine! It didn’t even hurt, right?” And then suddenly my daughter’s giggling.When it’s dinner and she doesn’t want to eat even though she hasn’t eaten all day, and it’s been 30 min and I’m begging her to eat and raising my voice and getting frustrated, and then my daughter just tells her “How high can you count? Let’s count your bites! I’ll do it with you.” and then she’s happily biting her food and holding up her fingers and counting until the food’s gone. And again I’m wondering why I don’t just think of that myself. Why is it so simple yet I can’t do it?I’m feeling like a failure right now. And if I’m honest, a little envious of my daughter. She doesn’t even realize how good she is. She just does it and moves on with her day. Of course, I love and appreciate her so so so much. It’s because of her I’m still sane. I just need to vent. This parenting thing is hard and it’s incredibly ironic that once upon a time I thought it was easy just because I had an easy child. I had the audacity to give side glances at misbehaving kids and their parents in the past and judge them. Little did I realize that I knew nothing about what it meant to REALLY be a good parent, when it’s hard, when it counts. :( via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Cwn9qx