Introduction: By all accounts, I am one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. The signers of my high school yearbooks unanimously proclaimed me “nice,” “kind,” and of course, “so sweat!” (sic). Friends and roommates in college found me to be gentle and forgiving. And even amongst my own family—mom and dad, brothers and sisters—I have always been considered a mild presence, a peacemaker. Children flock to me, and roundly consider me a favorite aunt and baby-sitter.
So it was with some degree of shock that I recently received, from my three-year-old, a new identity. With tears in his eyes after a particularly difficult day, he sobbed, “You’re a mean mommy.” Not once, but twice. And ever since, “You’re a mean mommy,” has been ringing in my ears. The words stung because I knew they were true. But I wasn’t merely administering “logical consequences” either. Rather, I was taking out a degree of my personal frustrations on my kids—not physically, but emotionally. Moreover, it wasn’t the first time this had happened, and sad to say, it wasn’t the last time either. If I could be consistently nice to everyone else, why was I being mean to my son? What kind of mother had I become?
The Incident: Busy afternoons are always stressful, but a few months ago, my stress-level boiled over. We had invited a guest for dinner, and she was due at 6:00. The meal I had planned could be quickly prepared—once I made the trip to the store to buy the seven ingredients I was missing. It was only 4:00. We had plenty of time, I figured, to get to the store (only ten minutes away) and get home to make our meal.
The trouble was my three-year-old son was wearing his pajamas. This was not unusual; he would often change in and out of pajamas during the day. But this time, at the least opportune time, he resisted dressing back into daytime clothes. This was also not unusual, but somehow, my standard bribes did not persuade him. Before long, I arrived at my ultimatum: “you must put on regular pants before we can go to the store.” Now I was stuck. Fifteen minutes ticked by, my blood pressure rising every minute. Finally, I caved. I marched my victorious, pajama-bottomed kid, complete with cowboy boots, out to the car and buckled him in.
But I couldn’t turn the key. My son’s defiance of my authority ate away at me and became intolerable. If I let him win this pajama battle, would he ever submit to daytime dress standards again? Would he continue to take liberties with my patience and goodwill? His comical appearance at the grocery store would reflect poorly on me. People might judge me to be a negligent mother. The minutes kept ticking away. He and his little sister were strapped in, ready to go, when something inside me broke. “Get out,” I barked. “We’re going back inside.”
Everyone was confused, especially me. As I marched the kids back inside, I did not know what would become of dinner. I supposed we could simply cobble together something with ingredients we had on hand, but I knew it wouldn’t be impressive. I had wanted our guest to feel that she had been treated to a special meal. Once inside the house again, the pressure began to bear down on me. Someone was expecting dinner from me and I had no plan for them. My kids were squirrelly, restless, and defiant. And worst of all, I was a wreck.
I rushed to my room and shut the door.
I won’t bore you with all the details of what happened behind the door, though it felt pretty good to grab clean clothes from the laundry basket and hurtle them across the room. I stayed inside for several minutes. And all the while, my kids were bawling outside my door. They felt wronged for being shut out and probably confused by the strange noises emerging from within. Now I thank heaven that neither they nor the paparazzi were present in the room as witnesses.
In the end I resorted to the tack that I probably should have started with. Since other methods of stress-relief had failed me, I just prayed. I don’t remember what I said, but I do recall feeling calmer, and ashamed, and eventually ready to emerge.
But outside the door I was confronted with the same old problems. I still did not know what to fix for dinner! My son still had not obeyed my directive! In a flash, my temper rose past its previous level, and this time I blew my top. Rushing to my son’s closet, I grabbed some jeans and threw them at his feet, hollering, “Put these on so we can go to the store!”
That was when he melted in tears and gave me the new identity.
*****
Now, I would not say this story is representative of my mothering overall. I truly do love my children and show patience and forbearance most of the time. They, in turn, are delightful children and often surprisingly obedient. Still, when they don’t cooperate, I sometimes abandon my best sensibilities. Guilt follows, but it is moderated by the triumph of getting my way. My kids seem to absorb my occasional fits without showing signs of trauma. The flare-ups pass quickly, which has allowed me to turn a blind eye to the pattern that has been forming.
The Incident changed all that. My son’s genuine tears, mourning the treatment he had just received, prompted me to examine the causes behind my episodic outbursts. Perhaps there was more I could do to eliminate these episodes. What makes mommies mean? Let’s examine some of the reasons with The Incident in mind.
1. Stress and pressure.
What set me off that afternoon? First, I had a deadline. Dinner had to be ready when our guest arrived. The minutes were ticking away, and the biggest obstacle between me and fulfilling my plan was my uncooperative boy siphoning away my already-limited time. Any deadline can create stress, whether we’re trying to mail packages, prep dinner, or arrive at an appointment. Deadlines press us to perform quickly, and any obstacle in our way can thwart our best-laid plans.
The key to relieving the pressure is two-fold: (1) reduce the number of deadlines we have to meet, and (2) work in advance of the deadline.
First, limit the number of deadlines you impose on yourself and your family. I have learned to be picky about what I sign myself up for, and sometimes I just have to say “no.” While inviting my guest was certainly a worthwhile use of my time that night, other activities might have been cut out of that week in order to maintain my own emotional equilibrium. This also implies that we know ourselves—our own capacities, our vulnerabilities, our tendencies to take on too much.
Last year, when tutoring a few hours a week created too many stressful moments in my house, I cut back to just one hour per week. I lost income, but with more time freed up I was able to manage household stress, and we had more peace in our home. It seemed a small sacrifice with great rewards. In addition, I try to reserve some “down-time” in our schedule each week. We can do anything we want to during this time, whether it’s building a train track together in the afternoon, browsing through books in the evening, or my favorite, lounging in our pajamas on a lazy morning. Down-time serves as a pressure-release valve, where parents and children alike are allowed to unwind, enjoy each other’s company, and actually play with the toys we invest in so much.
Second, work in advance of the deadline. As a life-long procrastinator, this is something I struggle with. Little tweaks in the routine have improved things. I create my week’s menu in advance, so I always know what is for dinner. Starting dinner earlier in the day gives me more wiggle room than I had in my disaster story. I try to pack my gym bag and diaper bag and in-church-entertainment bags the night before I need them, so that I don’t have to run around finding (or forgetting) things. Perhaps my most helpful discovery was this: on mornings when we have an early appointment, I always put shoes and socks on the kids at the same time they’re getting dressed for the day. Trying to do that just before running out the door would always make me late, and lateness typically brings out the grouch in me.
On many levels, advanced planning could have prevented The Incident altogether. Had I decided on the menu well in advance, I could have purchased the needed ingredients during my regular grocery shopping, making a last-minute trip to the store unnecessary. Or I might have simply gone to the store earlier that day. This would have lessened the pressure that I was feeling—and perhaps my son would not have been wearing his pajamas at that point in the day—and the trip would have gone much more smoothly.
The stress and pressure that I felt—created primarily by my choices, not my son’s—intensified my feelings of frustration that I heaped on my children. By carefully selecting outside commitments, and then working ahead of those inevitable deadlines, parents can save themselves and their children from many tense moments.
2. Stubborn, unmet expectations.
Let me be clear. I am not talking about having “unrealistic” expectations. My plan was to whip up a simple, quick-prep recipe for tacos. I was not attempting a gourmet meal, though the recipe was a finalist in the Pillsbury Bake-Off (I’ll put the link at the end of the article). But when my son made a trip to the store inconvenient, I refused to change my plan. I was stubborn. Instead of seeing the barricades in the road and choosing a different route, I gunned the accelerator and barreled right through. Predictably, I crashed and burned. Had I been willing to abandon the award-winning recipe, I could have easily thrown together some pasta dish or casserole using what I had on hand, and I am sure our guest would have enjoyed the meal just fine. But I had my mind set on the more impressive meal, and the pre-dinner peace in our household suffered as a result.
I still struggle with tempering my expectations, especially since I tend to obsess about any creative pursuit. In hindsight, I wish I had settled for an easier dinner. My family is more important, and my friend would have enjoyed her evening with us no matter what I had made. One of my happiest friends lives by the Shaker song, “Simple Gifts,” which teaches, “‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free, ‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be.”1 She attributes her happiness in life to her ability to simplify, which I agree, is a gift—one that I am striving to obtain.
3. Feeling Helpless.
Negotiating with a three-year-old is an unpredictable, often disappointing experience. His business is to explore the possibilities of independence by testing my limits. Sometimes I can offer him reasons why he should do things my way. “We want to be polite and respectful of others.” “Someone else needs our help.” And If I’m lucky, I can claim, “This will be fun!” But if my reasons fail to persuade, I feel stuck. I rack my brain, trying to recall, from the various parenting books I’ve read, the trick that I should apply. As often as not, in the spur of the moment, the books fail me. The mine fields of parenting life are not so easily diffused.
I become frustrated when I don’t know how to properly handle a certain situation. When my own kids misbehave, I feel puzzled and burdened with responsibility. The last thing I want is to be a permissive parent. In any given conflict, I worry about possible precedents I’m setting. My angst comes out in the form of more punitive consequences—he must “learn his lesson.” Of course the irony is that the lesson he learns is the negative one I am exemplifying. My concern about such unintended consequences is also the reason I can more easily show patience to other people’s children than I do my own. I do not have to account for the way they turn out, like I do my children.
While it is important that parents stay in control, and not allow children to become little bosses of the family, it is helpful to remember what, exactly, we are to control. (Hint: it’s not our children.) According to the 1964 classic by Rudolf Dreikurs, Children: The Challenge, parents are to be firm about enforcing limits but still allow children to choose whether they will live within them. Power struggles can thus be avoided. For example, instead of saying, “You must put on regular pants before we can go to the store,” I might have said, “Only the children wearing daytime pants will get a gumball as we leave the store today.” Then, the decision of whether or not to wear pajamas or regular pants would still belong to my son. I might end up taking him to the store wearing his pajamas, but he now has a strong incentive to follow my program, and his decision is not controlling whether we go to the store. I retain the power to do what I must do. Perhaps you will say that the gumball is essentially a bribe; perhaps you’re right. But at least the wording of the offer puts a distance between his initial refusal to cooperate and the gumball.
It is easy to create ultimatums without fully considering their implications. Should you find yourself in an impassible power struggle, be on the lookout for a loophole that both you and your child can escape through. Sometimes you can meet your kids halfway. For example, recently my son cried and kicked on the floor because he didn’t want to take a nap. I tried to coax him onto his bed by offering to rub his back. He refused and continued to tantrum. I was firm about not letting him escape the nap, but to meet him at his level, I offered to lie next to him on the floor and rub his back. He accepted this offer and soon fell asleep.
4. Lack of sleep—for parent and child alike
I am not sure that a lack of sleep played out in The Incident, but I have definitely seen a direct correlation between a lack of sleep and my own irritability in general. Still, I was not fully converted to my responsibility to sleep—for the good of my family—until I recently read April Perry’s “Mommy’s Naptime 101” article on this site. Not only does the article offer many justifications for more sleep, but it also provides useful suggestions for how to get more sleep. I now take a nap almost every day. I certainly feel entitled to some mid-day down-time, and my kids are learning to give it to me.
Just as important as a mother’s sleep is to her, ensuring that the children are getting as much sleep as possible can help them to be more cooperative and less likely to misbehave. A child’s need for abundant sleep has been well-documented, and there are many books that offer advice on how to lengthen and improve the quality of sleep that our children get. Sacrificing that one last errand in order to get home for naps pays off when it comes to contentment at home. Kids crave regularity, especially in naptimes and bedtimes.
5. Underlying emotional pain
Sometimes mommies are mean because of experiences they’ve had outside of parenting. Marital tension and other troubles can lead to outbursts with the kids. As my father-in-law, a professional family therapist, has often advised me, “You have to deal with the pain that a person is feeling before you can deal with the pain that that person is causing.” If you can’t afford a professional therapist, a conversation (or many) with a spouse, a sibling, or a good friend can give you an outlet to discuss and deal with your pain so that it does not come out in frustrating moments with the kids. Personally, I use my journal as my primary therapist whenever I’m feeling pained in life. Writing helps me to sort my thoughts in a safe setting.
Applying my father-in-law’s counsel to our children can also reduce the number and degree of conflicts in our homes. Often children misbehave because of some pain that they are feeling. Lack of sleep, as noted above, feelings of jealousy or being forgotten, or fear that we do not love them can lead children to do things that make them even harder to love! Whenever we can see beyond the behavior to a root cause, we make it easier for ourselves to show true empathy to our children, and hopefully help them through their real difficulty.
Conclusion:
I do believe that consistently treating our children with kindness and respect is possible. My own mother has long exemplified this principle. In fact, when my sister and I compared notes, we could each only think of one time in our whole lives we remembered our mother losing her temper with us—and it was the same one time. Her example is part of what made my own inability to stay calm so perplexing to me.
When all the elements conspire against us, sometimes we just have to will ourselves to be nice. As Dr. Harvey Karp teaches, in The Happiest Toddler on the Block, we can’t hope to civilize our toddlers if we demonstrate Neanderthal-like behavior to them on a regular basis. They will copy our behavior in their interactions with friends and younger siblings (I’ve already witnessed my son do so, for good and ill, many times). We are bound to make mistakes, for which we can, and should, apologize. But over time we will develop the ability to simply control ourselves. It may help to imagine how you would behave if someone whose opinion matters to you is sitting in the room, watching you interact with your children. Let’s recall the voice of Julie Andrews intoning in The Sound of Music, “I can be firm, but kind” and show our children the respect they deserve.
There is nothing that I want more than to have a home where my children feel secure and loved. I want them to grow into happy people that make wise life choices. Working with toddlers and children (and yes, I’m bracing myself for the teenage years) is a process in which everybody grows and progresses in tandem. I develop abilities that I never could without the forces of my children chipping off my rough corners. My supposed niceness becomes tested, refined, extended. Likewise, I shape my children and help them to negotiate a world of limits. This individual progression is a large part of what makes the family such a powerful force in the world.
(If you want to make some scrumptious tacos, check this out: Mexican Pesto-Pork Tacos. Just be sure to buy all your ingredients before your son puts on his pajamas!)
QUESTION: When was the last time you felt yourself turning into a “mean” mommy?
CHALLENGE: Next time you find yourself turning into a “mean” mommy, pause and try to identify the root cause. Decide what you can do to reduce the stress and pressure you feel and set a goal to respond differently the next time.
Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
This is a beautiful article! What insight! And what clear, excellent writing. You never seize to amaze me. You have my vote for “Best Mom” of the year. Thanks for calling this week. It has been a crazy week for us but we’ll chat soon. I miss you.
As a teen, my parents told me I could blame them for anything. If I was out with friends or on a date and I didn’t want to do something, my parents told me to say I wasn’t allowed to. They said to tell my friends I had really mean parents who didn’t allow X, Y, or Z. I liked having that safety net.
So now, whenever I can’t think of a 3-year-old-approved reason for one of my requests, I resort to: “Because I am a mean mama. I’m the meanest mama you’ll ever have.”
It helps me laugh, and feel in control, and gives my daughter an excuse for her good behavior later.
So true that expectations that are too high cause us to be too hard on our kids. Thank you.
Rachel Nielson says
Thanks to the awesome new design of the website, I just found this article that I had never read before. I loved it! This was much needed. The Incident story made me laugh aloud because I have been there…too many times!
I think there might be an error with the author name: It says “Power of Moms” but the comment refers to “Shawna” as the author. Is it Shawna Woodworth?
Sara Rich says
I honestly feel like I could’ve written most of this article. I think the best thing I took away from this article (besides the encouragement and ideas suggested) is that I am not alone in my struggle for doing my best and being my best and that there are moms out there who fall short in the ways I do. Not very many people share their weaknesses like this publicly (thank you❤). I needed to KNOW that I am not so alone with my struggles.