Sometimes I fail as a parent but that's ok

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I've had people tell me I'm a good parent, and I'm sure I've had people talk about my parenting failures behind my back too, but the truth of it is that I'm just like anyone else trying and failing and sometimes succeeding. My son is a great kid and sometimes I question how much of it is my parenting and how much of it is just him being him. My son and I have been through a lot together. When I had him, I was 23, and as much as I'd love to say I was an adult, I was still trying to find my footing in the adult world. I didn't have my life together. I was still a child in so many ways. My son and I grew up together. I had to figure things out very quickly upon having him. I knew what I did and didn't want for him. I struggled, and I made a ton of parenting mistakes. My son was very strong-willed as a toddler. I was his world. He loved and still loves his dad, but his dad has never had a ton of patience, and I was left to do the majority of the parenting. My husband, as much as I love him, knows his limitations. Things between him and our son have gotten a little easier now that our son is a teenager. My husband loves our son more than anything in this world, and while parenting is difficult for everyone, it seems to be a thousand times more difficult for my husband, who didn't have the best childhood. He just knew that he didn't want to be like his father, and he isn't, and he also left a lot of the parenting up to me because of his own fears. That said I struggled so much trying to figure things out along the way. I was young, and while not a child, as a 23 year old I didn't have my stuff together. Arguing with a toddler over every single thing was difficult. My son was a difficult toddler, and there were times I was left struggling to get through it, but somehow, we did get through it. He mellowed with age. We have had moments here and there where I was left wondering if I was a failure. My son was struggling for a while and I didn't know how to help him. He started having meltdowns over everything. He'd throw fits over things that seemed so small and I just couldn't understand why my eleven year old was freaking out and crying over small things like a small change in the cafeteria menu at school. I knew it wasn't normal. We first started noticing things were wrong when he was in second grade and he was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder and that explained so much, but simply knowing didn't automatically fix things. We thought it did briefly because a lot of his behavior got better right after being diagnosed and stayed fine until fifth grade, when he started having more meltdowns. I felt like a failure. I couldn't help my kid, and I didn't even know where to begin. Thankfully, he hit puberty, and things seemed to have mellowed out at least for the time being. I am still figuring out how to parent a teenager. At one time, I could fix things just by being present. Now, my presence isn't always what he wants. Now, he sometimes prefers space. It's difficult going from the person your child seeks out in a crowd to being an embarrassment at times. I do my best to try and give him space when he needs it while also letting him know I'm there. Sometimes, I am the problem while not trying to be. Sometimes, my patience is thin, and I snap when I shouldn't. The other day, I had a particularly difficult day at work. I work with kids as a para to a one-on-one, but I'm in a regular classroom and often work with all the kids. All of the kids have been very difficult this past week. They've all been very dramatic and while I'm typically a very patient person, my patience was overtaxed this week. It's difficult keeping it together when you have ten kids coming up to you at once crying about how so and so said something mean. These are third graders who should be able to handle some conflict resolution but can't. They come to adults over every little thing and then get upset when I tell them they need to work it out because they need to learn how to problem solve because they aren't in kindergarten anymore. I tell them it's important to use their words and work out their problems but if it turns to bullying, to let me know. I obviously don't want kids to be deliberately mean, but they should be able to work out issues in their friendships on their own. It's something all kids go through. Anyway, after several of these talks, I tend to get mentally tired. I came home with very little left in me. When I got home later that day, my son put on his choir uniform for his performance later that night. He informed me everything fit. I told him the reason the shirt he was wearing for his last performance didn't was because he had on the choir shirt from last year and he outgrew it. He then told me he found it on the dryer and that I told him to look on the dryer for it. I told him I didn't remember that because it was three months ago. He got upset and told me that he felt like he was never right about anything, and I told him it wasn't that deep it was just a choir shirt, and this all happened three months ago and was not worth arguing about but that set him off and he told me it mattered to him and ran out of the room. I needed a moment to process everything. I realized that maybe I wasn't the most sympathetic to whatever was happening with him. My son is usually pretty mellow and it's rare he gets worked up like that anymore apart from earlier that morning when I was giving him directions on where to find clothes and he wasn't listening to my directions correctly and got upset with me and I was annoyed with him because he was giving me attitude which I was not used to, a few years ago that was completely normal but the last time I had seen an outburst like that was a couple years ago. My son is 14 and while yes, he is capable of finding clothes he asks that I help him because he's terrible at matching. He knows this is a labor of love I do for him and is typically very grateful I do this for him, but he was having an off day and so was I. After his last outburst I called him downstairs and asked if something was going on that was making him more emotional. He told me he didn't know. I talked to him about why he felt the way he did. I told him that he is right sometimes but that I am not arguing about something that happened three months ago. I said maybe I did tell him it was on the dryer I couldn't remember but that I wasn't going to argue about it because it happened months ago. I told him that sometimes I don't have the right answers and that sometimes unfortunately the adults do get the final words in an argument because we are adults and they are the kids but that doesn't mean we are always right as much as we just get tired of arguing and that no it's not fair and I'll try and work on it but that he also needs to let some things go because sometimes it isn't important who is right or wrong especially when it comes to the small things. I told him I was sorry that I snapped and that his feelings are valid, and he's allowed to feel things but that flipping out over the small things isn't going to make things easier on him and that arguing over a shirt seems a little silly because it doesn't fix anything. I told him I understood the issue was more about him not feeling heard and that once again I'd work on not shutting him down so quickly but that I just didn't have it in me to argue about something that happened three months ago. I told him I loved him, and I just want the very best for him and that I just hate arguing which is why I typically shut it down and it wasn't something personal. I told him it wasn't about his being right and me being wrong but about not wanting to argue in general but that I would try and listen more going forward. I don't know that I have the right answers, I question every parenting move I've ever made. I just know that I felt like a failure that day. I was tired and mentally taxed, and I just didn't have another argument in me. It all seemed so silly to me but to my son it was about more than a shirt and I understand that. I don't like that he feels like he isn't a valued member of this household whose thoughts and feelings matter. That hurt. I know he just wants to be heard. We all want to be heard. I don't know why he chose that particular day to get worked up, but he did and I didn't handle it well and I know that. I try so hard to listen to him but sometimes I'm wrapped up in my own thoughts and emotions and I fail. I definitely feel like I failed that day. I tell my son I'm not perfect and I'm sorry that I don't always say and do the right things as his mother but that I'm trying. I wasn't given a guidebook on how to deal with things. However difficult I thought the toddler and kid years were I was not prepared for the difficulty that comes with the teen years. My son is such a good kid, and he's always quick to forgive me of my flaws but I know sometimes I really fail him and that hurts. I am no longer the person he looks up to and who does no wrong but a very flawed human who has let him down more times than I can count but he knows I love him more fiercely than anything and that seems to count for something at least to him. The truth is we are all stumbling through life trying to figure out how life works. We are trying to figure out how to be better parents, better spouses, better sons and daughters, better friends, but we are human and sometimes we don't get it right and it's ok. We all need to be more forgiving of each other and treat each other with a little more kindness. It's a tough world out there and we could all use a little more patience and understanding. I was born with a lot of patience but there are days mine is hanging on by a thread and I snap because I'm human and I'm still trying to forgive myself for my humanness. I have a much easier time forgiving others than I do forgiving myself and that's something I have to work on. If only I could take a page out of my son's book and love and forgive to the same degree, he does.