Great moments in parenting
R is in military service this week, so I'm on my own with the Small Boy.
Day 1 of single parenting went great! I dropped him off at The Farm at 10:00 am and returned at about 5:30pm. Small Boy and I ate dinner with R's parents and by the time we got home there was just enough time to put him to bed. Not bad, huh?
Day 2 of single parenting, um, not so much. By dinner time I had taken him on a drive, walk and bus ride to get him to take a nap (all to no avail); yelled at him; yelled at him to shut up (there are exactly two things I swore I would never do: hit my child, and tell him to shut up. Yeah.); and bribed him into eating dinner by letting him watch cartoons on my laptop at the table while I slid food into his inattentive mouth. Excellent. Oh, and I also called R at work in the Army - R who is a Lieutenant-Colonel and probably has better things to do during his military service* - and held the phone to Small Boy's screaming mouth, on the logic that if I have to listen to this, R does too. Then I yelled at R for a bunch of stuff that was totally out of his control, hung up on him, and, shrew that I am, unplugged the phone so he couldn't call me back. As if he would have wanted to. Not exactly one of my finer moments. Not exactly five or six of my finer moments, but who's counting?
To nobody's surprise and everybody's (well, my) relief, Small Boy is at The Farm again today. Let us all praise in-laws who live ten minutes away and who love their grandson more than all the stars in the sky. Amen.
Small Boy seems to have forgiven me. After dinner I apologized for yelling at him and asked if he would forgive me and he said "Yeah!" and leaned up agains me on the couch and patted my head. Bath-time was a laugh-riot of blowing soap bubbles onto Mama's head; at bed-time there were many hugs and kisses; and this morning all seems to be forgotten. By him, at least. I, on the other hand, can't let it go and I hate myself and I can't think of his sweet little face without starting to cry. I'm sitting here in the apartment in my sweats with the shades down, hiding my shame from the neighbors but it's clearly visible to me. I told my son to shut up. My sweet beautiful boy who was only crying and whining because it was 6pm and he hadn't slept all day and he was desperate and exhausted. And I yelled at him. He's fine and happy having fun at The Farm but I'm sitting in the dark crying and thinking about what a horrible parent I am.
Why is it at these moment we replay the thing we did wrong over and over and never remind ourselves of the thousands of things we've done right. When Small Boy dropped a glass Christmas ornament on the floor and broke it, I didn't even raise my voice. I made sure he stayed away from the glass until R cleaned it all up, and then I explained to him that the ornament was broken and couldn't be fixed and that's why we have to be careful. Then I showed him exactly what careful meant: I showed him how to hold the ornament with both hands and how to walk slowly with it and how to hand it to Dada. Then I found the nicest, prettiest best breakable ornament we had left and I made a big deal about how special it was, and then I gave it to Small Boy to show him that I believed in him. That night as I was going to bed I was so happy with how I reacted, so pleased that I didn't even raise my voice (my mother would have yelled), so proud of how I gave Small Boy another fragile ornament after he had accidently broken one. I'm not bad at this, I'm really not. And then a day like yesterday comes along and I do everything wrong.
I told Small Boy to shut up. I'm so ashamed of myself. He's so sweet, and I'm such a rotten person for doing that and he's clearly let it go and I can't.
* Insert joke about the higher your rank the less you actually have to do here.
Labels: about a boy
12 Comments:
Everyone has a weak moment when they too are at the end of their rope, and I think that if that is the worst that you do, you are doing great!
How refreshing! I'm not the only Mom of an angel who runs low on patience sometimes.
Fantastic writing!
http://cocktailmom.blogspot.com
You know, I had this revelation the other day while reading someone else's account of potty training using strong-arm tactics. I think maybe those of us with, uh, less than ideal childhoods have a much lower threshhold for what we consider abusive or unforgivable behavior than do people who are not constantly monitoring themselves for signs that they are repeating ugly patterns from the past.
Which is to say that I think that someone else might judge your occasional yelling to be not as terrible as it seems to you. Does that make any sense?
No, no, no. I think you sound like a wonderful mom to a wonderful little boy. Everyone has their moments.
Good mama. Don't worry, he is more resilient than you know. The apology is HUGE in parenting. Something my parents never did, but I have made a practice of doing when I'm wrong. Which is a lot.
I'm much worse. I scream a lot and yes I feel terrible gulity afterwards and I cry about it but I continue to do it because I get to my wits end. It's extremely hard being a "single" parent. (we're alone all week too)
It sounds to me like you could GIVE some lessons in parenting! The ornament thing made me feel like such a pud. How perfectly well you handled it. I made Little S sit on the steps for 3 minutes for breaking my favorite mug the other day. I also screamed really loud and said "you broke mommy's favorite mug!" See how terrible I am. I hated myself after that. It was just a stupid mug.
two steps forward, one step back. every relationship has hicups, and life is always a process. on another point - do you have enough diet coke to get thru the week?
Like someone said to me a while back, and I haven't forgotten it: "You're a good mom. The day just got away from you is all."
I so remember that feeling! The important thing, though, is that you apologized. I used to feel horrible when I would snap impatiently at my kids, but I was pretty good at later apologizing. So I figure that at least I've modeled that behavior for them -- and they have learned how to apologize. That is something my parents' generation rarely did -- ever admit they were wrong.
I think it's the best we can do -- admit to our kids that we are human and sometimes lose our tempers or get frustrated but that we also take responsibility for our behavior and apologize and do something nice to make up for it.
Been there. Done that. I agree with the comment above that apologies are important. Nothing like a good, sincere apology to relieve a little mummy-guilt!
You know, there's no such thing as a perfect relationship. Life has its ups and downs and it's important that Small Boy learns this.
You may have reacted in a way you felt was inappropriate but afterwards you apologized and went back to your normal warm, loving way of interacting with him.
In real life people get mad. They get frustrated. And the important thing is that you're showing Small Boy that life goes on and that you don't love him any less after you've been angry.
Which is a pretty valuable lesson when you think about it...
Ahhhh you would think I was terrible then because I have found myself yelling this twice this week.
Totally ashamed too, but man demanding 2 year olds can drive anyone batty.
This evening my huisband was trying to tell me about a stressful day and our son wouldn't be quiet. For the first time in 2 years my husband yelled at him to shut up.
We both looked at eachother in horror and then giggled.
Even though is delightful and lovely I now understand the term terrible two's.
Hugs and kisses
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