Yesterday was a really hard day. My husband had shoulder surgery 5 days ago. It has been 5 days of being the primary caregiver to my two children AND my man child. Five days of trying to get caught up on laundry, dishes, housework, yard work, etc. Five days of trying to convince my kids to do anything other than watch TV. Five days of moving for 18 hours straight to get it all done. Yesterday I snapped. I had asked my 5yo repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly to get ready for school while I get ready. He wanted to go outside so I finally said ‘ok, take 5 minutes’ and he immediately came in with muddy shoes and said ‘it’s OK it’s wet and boring outside’ and I asked him to take his shoes off. He insisted he had to keep them on and I said ‘no, no, no come here’ and I attempted to take his shoes off. At the same moment he pulled my dirty, unwashed hair out of it’s bun and I lost it. We were late already, I had so much to do and so much more to do. In my overwhelm, I screamed at him. I then screamed at his brother. Unleashing 4 days of pent up frustration and exhaustion. He screamed in frustration at himself. We finally got out of the door and into the car. All 4 of us. We drove to school in relative silence as I pouted and cried off and on. Disappointed at myself. Do you know what hurt the most? I’ve worked for a solid year to not be that person. To focus on kindness and warmth towards my kids. And I failed in the most epic way. I was cruel to my kids and once I calmed down I realized it was for absolutely nothing. Who cares if we are late to school (well, the old school did, but not the new school)?
When we arrived at school, I turned back to my son and reached for his hand. Appearing calm and relieved he took it. I told him “what happened this morning was 100% my fault- you did absolutely nothing wrong. I am so sorry that I yelled at you, you did not deserve that. I hope you have the very best day and that I didn’t ruin it.” He gave me a big hug and went inside for drop off. I pouted all day, crying off and on. Ashamed of my behavior. Ashamed that I still get overwhelmed and explode and cannot seem to control it, no matter how hard I am trying. My younger son and I had a wonderful walk to the park and picnic that allowed me to reset. Everything was calm and ‘normal’ for the rest of the day. This morning, we got up 30 minutes earlier and while Calvin fought me for a second on not watching TV, he ended up finding fun games to play. I took a shower, made them breakfast which they ate! I got them both ready and out of the door right on time. No stress, no fuss, Calvin got himself ready early.
In the car, Calvin told me that he did a good job doing what I asked so that I didn’t have to yell. I pouted for a second and I said- ‘you did amazing today! But I want you to know that me getting overwhelmed yesterday was not your fault. Mommy is trying to do better at not getting overwhelmed and yesterday I failed. You were normal. You were a normal 5 yo- you are not a bad kid- do you know that?” and he nodded yes. He asked why I yell back at him when he yells at me and I said “i don’t know. I wish I didn’t. I just don’t control my emotions as well as I wished I could all of the time.” He replied “next time I yell, just tell me to stop. Don’t yell at me, just talk to me.” I thanked him for sharing that with me and promised I would try to do that to the best of my ability next time. And that was it. My very hard day was over.
Now it is time to have grace so that it doesn’t happen again. I remember when my father used to have really bad nights, fueled by alcohol, he never apologized or even acknowledged that he hurt us. I imagine he thought we knew, but we did not. I can only hope that my attempts to repair and do just a little better than he did will go a long way. I’m so proud of Calvin’s ability to speak with me about what has happened- without judgement and only with love. This tells me that I may not get it right every time, but I’m on the right path. And this is the first time I’ve yelled at him in a really long time. It’s time to forgive myself, for growth is not linear. It can be easy sometimes when we hit a speed bump to shame ourselves into believing that is our true self. But it is not. We are the person who shows up every single day trying to do better. And each day that we do better, we are closer to being who we truly want to be.
For all of my kin out there fighting to be better and do better so our kids can Know better: I see you. Keep fighting, keep trying, keep working and keep growing. Growth isn’t always up. Sometimes there will be hard days. There will be challenges we didn’t see coming and weren’t quite prepared for. Our best is ALL we can do.
MumGene 