The details leading up to it really aren’t that interesting–It was my husbands birthday last Monday. We were all at home that morning because it was Columbus Day. So instead of having the normal structure of a “mommy day,” we treated it like a typical Sunday morning–letting either mom or dad sleep in until the kids completely lose it somewhere around 10am.
Since it was his birthday and all, we gave dad the “gift of sleep” even though I was feeling like crap–exhausted, a little sick, and unsteady. When the deteriorating of the toddlers kicked in, the flareups came fast and furious. And I observed myself yelling at them not once but at least three times. At that point, it was only 9 am. I just couldn’t wake him up yet.
I am not a yeller by nature.
When I find myself giving in to anger by yelling, it means I have reached my peak of problem solving and am feeling completely out of control.
Many times danger is involved, like yell #3 that morning when one toddler was swinging on the refrigerator door while the other was wedged inside the fridge and I had a full pot of boiling water on the flaming gas stove just beside the stove.
It was ugly, terrible screaming because I was exhausted on all levels and wasn’t able to see what the situation needed to be resolved. (Baby gate, anyone??)
So often as mothers, our judgement is blurred by lack of sleep and lack of space.
Once I regained my composure (and averted danger), I shuttled the kids out to the backyard. This involved a whole mess of protests, tears, and flinging themselves on the ground as I tried to shove their little New Balances on their feet.
When my husband came outside around noon, I did my best to give him a bright Happy Birthday! before I hightailed it upstairs for a break. I lay in my oldest son’s room and melted into tears. Why was that morning so difficult? Why had I snapped so easily, so often? Why was I so frayed?
It would be so easy to become a yeller and screamer.
It’s even sort of justified in the refrigerator/stove scenario above. But it makes me feel like crap. It is not at all the kind of mother I want to be. It is not at all the kind of environment I want to create in my home.
That morning, crying in my sons’s room, I read from Buddhism for Mothers, which actually has a whole chapter devoted to anger.
Among the many inspiring passages I found, one of the most helpful was the author’s perspective on the Buddha’s Discourse on the Forms of Thought in which the Buddha presents five options for dealing with disturbing thoughts.
They are:
1. Dwell on the positive
2. Consider the results of our thoughts
3. Distract ourselves
4. Consider the alternatives.
5. Use our willpower.
As the author points out, what’s so fantastic about this list is that they are options.
So while sometimes it might not be not possible to use a typical toddler distraction (“hey you hanging on the fridge handle which could easily plow your brother right into the open flame of the stove–how about a tickle?!!”). But it would be a useful exercise to think back to a less dangerous situation you didn’t feel so hot about and consider other ways you could have handled it based on the “5 Ways to Not Lose It” menu above.
I apologized to my children later that day.
Isaiah, my oldest, clearly remembered the incidents of that morning, and by apologizing I hope I am showing him that we are all human. And even if I was right (no hanging on the goddamn fridge), I didn’t handle it right.
Anger is such a fleeting emotion.
I can’t even remember the other 99 things I’ve yelled about recently. But the aftermath of giving in to anger sits in the home, like tobacco on a smoker’s wall.
Here’s to not giving in.
