When I was picking up my three kids from their afterschool program on campus, one of my sons, 8 at the time, simply would not leave. I tried getting him to come repeatedly, but to no avail. The other two kids, along with myself, were getting really annoyed.
There was a bit of “Mommy, let’s just leave him!”, and some “I just can’t leave him here at school.” So we waited some more. By the time he finally joined us, the other two kids were thoroughly frustrated and they all started fighting. Pushing ensued.
After the fighting settled down, we trudged onward. To go from the playground to the front of the school, we had to walk through the auditorium, which contained a few kids still there from the afterschool program and, on this particular night, a Girl Scout troop meeting.
The son who’d made us wait didn’t want to go through the auditorium for some reason and in my irritated state, I had no empathy or nurturing left to give. After a bit of persuasion and authoritarianism, I finally got him to walk through with me. The other two kids were out of the auditorium waiting for us.
As my son and I exited the auditorium, I held the door open for him. He was defiantly dragging his backpack on the stairs that descended from the exit. I told him to stop. He dragged it down another two steps. I told him to stop again. He dragged some more. Well apparently this was the last straw for me.
“DON’T DRAG IT!” I yelled. It felt as if the words shot out of my mouth forcefully and uncontrollably. After I said it, I noticed something shift in the air. I snapped out of my tantrum-mentality and became more aware of my surroundings again. This is when I noticed I was still holding open the door behind me. I peered inside. Apparently my yell had traveled directly into the auditorium and pretty much everyone inside was looking right at me to see who the Mean Mom was. Even the girl scouts. At-Home-Only-Mom had slipped out in public.
Oops.
Then again, I’m only human. I’m far from perfect, Lord knows. If I could truly let go of that lofty ideal that I’m supposed to always aim, in every waking moment, to be a wise, unruffled and perfectly grounded parent–even in the face of great stress—I would sure have a lot less parenting guilt. I mean it would sure be a lot nicer to view parenting mistakes as opportunities for growth instead of using them as additional opportunities to beat myself up.
Perfect parenting is impossible to achieve. To be honest, I don’t even think it’s the best thing for kids to have a parent who never makes mistakes, or who tries to cover them up—including and especially the big mistakes. You know how when you aim for a strike in bowling, you aim just off center? And if you get it too straight on the nose you won’t get a strike? I think that’s a realistic and even healthy metaphor for how to view parenting and perfection, both for us as parents and for our kids. We aim for our best, not perfection. After all, that’s all we’re really able to do anyway.
If I were actually a perfect parent, or even remotely close to it, my kids would grow up thinking they’re supposed to be like that too. If I tried hard to cover up my mistakes, they might view mistakes as embarrassing and maybe even shameful. If their goal is perfection in whatever it is they do, they would inevitably fall short and then, guess what? They’d probably beat themselves up about it. I’d rather have them aim for self-acceptance over negative self-judgement.
At least that’s what I tell myself to make me feel better when I lose my temper or do some other frustration-driven, immature behavior I later regret. But I really do believe it. Although the yelling incident was embarrassing for me, the repair work I have to do is between me and my kids, not between me and the people who saw me yelling at my kids. What I can do do is repair when there’s a rupture, forgive myself when I didn’t act the way I’d wished I had, apologize when appropriate (I’m a big fan of parents apologizing to kids. I think it’s largely how they learn to do it themselves), and learn from it.
Just like infants take baby steps to walk, so it goes for parents learning how to become positive models for their kids. It’s a one incident-at-a-time path. And, well…I’m getting to be pretty okay with that.
The Way I See It 