I thought I was going to sit down and write out at least a part of the post that I lost, because there were a lot of things in there I wanted to say, worth trying to say again. I thought I was going to be able to sit down and write, finally, just for a few minutes, at the end of the day, hours (days) after the thoughts popped in to my head demanding my attention.
And then the child came up with a book, and asked me to read, and told me to read, and demanded I read, and wouldn’t take no, nor not now, nor in a minute, nor your dad would love to read to you, nor “please come let me read to you!” called from the other room for an answer, only me, only right now, more insistent even than the thoughts. So I read him the book. And then again. And then again. And then again, but this time I am not allowed to touch the book, but I am still supposed to make the puppet move.
Which is when I threw it across the room.
Not a shining parenting moment, that. Not nearly as rare as I would like, either.
I console myself with the thought that there are no perfect parents in the world, that perfection is itself undesirable and therefore paradoxical, impossible. But one could be better. I could be better. I’d say I should be better, but my mother would tell me not to should on myself (does that pun work in other dialects?). But I should be better. I want to be. He deserves me to be. I deserve to be.
Obviously I’ve gotten a few minutes to myself, finally, but at what cost? Have I taught him that I have boundaries and needs too, that mothers work, that thoughts are important? Or have I taught him that he is not good enough for me, that I love him only when I don’t have other things to do, that anger expressed physically is an appropriate method of expressing oneself? I don’t know. Maybe some of both. Probably mostly the latter.
I grew up in a house with yelling, with anger expressed in punched walls and thrown pillows. The Man grew up in a house with so much yelling he learned to tune it out, so much that family dinners were annual events and guaranteed fights, and now has a conflict avoidance mechanism so profoundly powerful his psyche could probably survive anything, but does so by keeping everything out. I don’t want that for the Boychick. We are nowhere near as bad as our families of origin, but I don’t want even a shadow of that for him.
There are no “bad” emotions, and we must be free to express ourselves in healthy ways, but this yelling, this anger, can become a habit. The more we rehearse certain neural pathways, the stronger they get, the more readily we fall in to those patterns. If I refrain from yelling when I just cannot take another fucking minute of being ordered about, am I repressing, or reprogramming?
No one deserves to be the focus of anger or verbal abuse, and though often triggered by him, rarely are my outbursts at him, but The Man and I are proof that merely growing up around it, even if rarely directed at us, is enough to leave deep and lasting scars. I want my child to grow up free to express his full range of emotions, but not to have a pattern of flinching like his parents’. I haven’t figured out that balance yet, not quite even in theory, and miserably not in practice.
This isn’t the post I wanted to write. I am not the parent I wanted to be. But it’s good enough for now. And I can do better tomorrow.
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
Oh Arwyn.
You know, Bertie woke me up at five a.m. for the nth morning running today. And I just don’t have the energy to be entertaining any more. So now I just plonk him in front of the telly for an hour while I have coffee and wake up. It’s not great. I know that.
But I also subscribe to Scott Noelle’s 51% theory.
http://is.gd/jfQV
I also think that, if we’re occasionally harsh with our children, as long as we apologise and show that we can get over that anger, we’re still modelling good behaviour in a way.
No one can always be the parent they want to be. Not that that is an excuse to be an asshole all the time, but if you hit the mark 100% of the time, everyone would hate you for being a perfect prat, no?
I agree with Ruth, the key is showing how to handle the aftermath of a parental meltdown. Apologize, show affection, show your children that we are human and can fall short of our ideals too… and that it’s ok.
xoxo you’re awesome
Hi, Arwyn. I found your blog recently and identify with many of your posts. Our parenting styles seem similar. I’m delurking to offer a book that is helping me be a better parent to my almost-3-year-old. It’s called “Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles” by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, and is about uncovering and getting past the kind of response you just described (and who doesn’t have those?!). It’s also about helping you teach your child how to recognize, label, and deal with their own emotions. Hope I’m not being too presumptuous…
What Korin said!
I remind myself (often!) that if I want my child to be comfortable expressing her emotions freely (which I do), I’m not doing her any favors by choking mine down. Which isn’t carte blanche for defaulting to anger, of course, but still, I think so much of it is all in how you handle it and how often it happens, like other folks have said.
The family history piece of it is so tricky to navigate too — almost everybody’s got some primal message to counteract about anger and how it’s displayed.
Be gentle with yerself, woman! And if it helps any, I marvel at your overall patience as a parent every time I see you. xoxo
Hi,
I’m a relatively new follower of your blog and I just love it. You capture a lot of things I’m just starting to consider as a new parent. Thank you! I’ve given you an award over at:
http://mcsmithley.blogspot.com/2009/02/these-are-few-of-my-favorite-things.html
((((Arwyn))) I think you’re an awesome mom!!!
(ps you’ve been awared – http://offthehookwithamanda.blogspot.com/2009/02/lemonade-award.html)
Y'all are sweet. Thank you. I'm OK with occasional outbursts handled well, I just think we're really at the stage of far too often still, and not handled well, at least not enough of the time. But thank you.
Ruth — I almost mentioned Noelle, but really that's another post (or three).
Korin & Jenn — thanks.
Karen — of course it's not presumptuous, thanks for the recommendation.
Jen and Jari — Yay, I'm building a lemonade stand empire!
[...] This is not the post I thought I was going to write [...]
[...] This is not the post I thought I was going to write [...]