For several years now I’ve been trying to live under the guise that I’m one of those fantastic moms whose entire life is made up of silver linings. I’ve tried to convince myself that I am the epitome of optimism, and when I read all those articles describing how much happier optimistic people are, I try to cajole myself into feeling proud that I’m one of them.
But here it is: I am grumpy!
When my kids make messes, when they appear to have lost their hearing, and when my husband jokes about the burned dinner, my natural inclination is to be irritated. I am not one of those amazing moms who have that nurturing patience and joyful presence just emanating from my being.
The thing is, I want to be optimistic. I want to see the blue skies when the grey keeps pushing through. I want to be cheerful and, most of all, I want to set a positive tone in my home.
When it first dawned on me that I might be living in denial, my first instinct was to bury that truth. I wanted to be an optimistic mother, so I was going to continue pretending to be one!
It didn’t work out very well.
Fortunately, I have stumbled upon a few ideas that have proven worthwhile:
(1) Don’t be ashamed.
I think this was probably the main reason why I kept trying to fool myself (and everyone around me) into thinking that I was a naturally happy-go-lucky person. I felt embarrassed that it was hard for me to look at the bright side sometimes.
I looked at other people and saw how easy it was for them to laugh (my husband being one of them) and to roll with the punches, and I felt envious of the fact that it sometimes meant work for me.
I have since realized that every single person is born with weaknesses. So, while it may take effort for me to be cheerful in the face of adversity, I have other strengths that allow me to succeed elsewhere (and others may be weak where I am strong).
(2) You can improve!
Despite the fact that everyone has weaknesses, one of the great things about life is that we can learn to overcome them. What an incredible feeling it will be to overcome something that is persistently difficult for us. Here are a few things that have helped me as I try to become the mom I want to be:
- Inspiration Boards! There are a million and one different ways you could do this, and it really just depends on your personal taste. My board is not worthy of a décor magazine, but it does the job. I find inspiring and encouraging quotes all over the place (parenting books, religious material, etc.) and then I hang them on my board. I rotate my increasingly large stack of quotes out on a regular basis – I find that doing this helps me to keep them fresh in my mind.
- Power of Moms articles and podcasts. Okay, it looks like I’m just looking for brownie points here, but these really have been helpful. I’ve made a point of listening to podcasts while showering most mornings, and it’s such a great way to start my day on the right track. There are tons of amazing resources out there for moms – make use of them!
- Remind yourself that changing character traits takes time… a lot of time. Celebrate the small successes. Share them with a spouse or friend. Use that same person as a sounding board when you’re feeling discouraged and overwhelmed. Above all, remember that it will be hard work, but it is attainable and it is absolutely worth the effort!
This brings me to my next point (as hard as it is…):
(3) Try to keep things in perspective.
Those of us who have to work at being cheerful sometimes let the little things turn into the big things. Those bags of spilled cereal, the overflowing bathroom sink, and the seemingly relentless whining are all things that really don’t matter. Even some of the “bigger things” don’t deserve as high a pedestal as we sometimes give them.
I am currently finishing my degree in Marriage and Family Studies. I would love to do well, but when the day is done, I will be much happier going to bed knowing that I was soft-spoken and kind to my children, rather than having completed all my assignments and everything on my to-do list. It’s hard when we’re in the middle of it, but jump outside the box and look at the bigger picture. Our family relationships should be our top priority!
Earlier today, I was cleaning up a big pile of crayons that my girls had left out. My toddler son kept pouring the bucket out as soon as I got a handful in. My initial reaction was to tell him “no” and to take him out of the room so I could get the mess cleaned up and move on to the next task on my list. Instead, I laughed with him and tickled him each time he spilled the crayons. I lost count of how many times those crayons hit the floor, but my son and I shared a few moments of joy and I wouldn’t trade that for a cleaned up mess any day.
So, again, to the mom who has to work at letting little things slide, at smiling more, and at keeping that short-fuse at bay – don’t be discouraged! Acknowledge that this may be a weakness of yours and then dig deeper to see if you can turn it into a strength. Amidst the crying and messes and frustrations, there is so much to love about motherhood. Don’t let yourself miss out on that! Don’t let those little things thwart your chance to grow and to experience the fulfilling joy of being a mother. We can do this!
QUESTION: What is the biggest help to you in trying to keep the right perspective when you are feeling stressed and worn out?
CHALLENGE: Create an “Inspiration Board” (or something else) to provide you with a visual reminder of what your goals are and what’s important. If you’re not a visual learner, make an effort to talk to someone close to you about your triumphs and your challenges and see if you can get some inspiration that way.
I totally relate to this. I think of all the times I overreacted to things that I could have made a joke out of and created a better atmosphere and attitude in my household. I hope I can be mindful of that going forward.
Claire – I’m glad I’m not the only one! The funny thing is, I KNOW that I feel better and happier when I do laugh and keep my perspective in line, but it can be hard when my to-do list is a mile long. I just read a quote by Maya Angelou, “Do your best until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I feel like this applies here – we know that we’ll have happier homes if we can smile more and get upset less. Now for the challenge – do it! Much easier said than done… 🙂
I love your perspective. I do have an inspiration board. Its called my bathroom mirror. I even have a secondary one on the window above my kitchen sink. These are the places I stand still the most often during the day so I can read them over and over. A few years ago one of my church leaders gave a quote that changed my parenting forever. The quote hung on my bathroom mirror for months, (the husband reads them too when they are there, BONUS!). The quote says, “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.” My husband and I put this quote into action in our home. We focused on the person more than the problem. Amazing things happened but the biggest was that our children started to take responsibility for their mistakes more often and in more positive ways. We are far from perfect at this. There are times when I forget and focus on the problem at the moment. I realize my mistake much more quickly and apologize and then both of us move on with more love for each other. A couple of weeks ago my 11 year old sone decided to cut some poster board on our kitchen table with an Exacto knife. He neglected to put down proper protection leaving some deep scratches in the table. At first glance, I was not happy but I knew he didn’t do it on purpose. When I pointed it out to him, he felt horrible. My husband and I both forgave him quickly, told him that we loved him despite the poor chioces that he made. It bothered him for a few days but we continued to show love. Now I look at those scratches and know that the potential to damage more than my table was there but I chose to love and forgive. My son knows his parents love him even when he makes mistakes. Our other children watched this go on too and they learned this lesson perhaps not as deeply as our son. Parenting is not easy but we don’t have to be perfect or do it alone.
Paula, thank you for sharing your experience! I LOVE the example you gave. I admire you for being able to see the bigger picture and to realize that your son’s well-being is much more important than your table. And, like you pointed out, your other children saw your example. There isn’t a better way to teach them!
I think I’ll add your quote to my inspiration board. 😉
Megan,
Thank you for sharing this. I get irritated and angry so easily- it’s my big secret, and I am embarrassed that I don’t laugh easily and let stuff just roll off me. I’ve thought something was wrong with me for a long time! I try to hold it in, get a lot of sleep so I’m not so on edge, but still I find I get irritated. And my children are such good people. I will try that inspiration board! I need to try to keep the long-term perspective you mentioned: how will I feel at the end of the day? One tactic that I think will be helpful is if I practice or visualize the situations ahead of time. Many of the stressful situations that happen at our place are pretty predictable: running late to school, being bombarded during dinner prep, having the children on task during zone clean-up time. If I can anticipate when I get frustrated, and practice go-to responses like smiling and laughing, then maybe I can get a new go-to reaction.
Dawn, I LOVE that you visualize things ahead of time. I think this is so key because it gives us a “tool” to pull out of our head when it’s go time. If we don’t prepare ourselves with alternative responses to our typical stressors, we will likely just react without thinking and we’ll end up regretting our response. Fabulous idea!
Dawn
I read your comment and it sounded just like me. I actually talked with a counsellor because I was feeling so overwhelmed and not enjoying life with my little girls. Below are things which have helped me. Also, she got me to work through the book “Mind over mood”.
1) Keep a gratitude journal. Every night I write down 3 things I am grateful for. This keeps me focused on the positive.
2) Write a to do list for the next day and break it down to what HAS to get done and what you would like to get done? I used to stress myself out by putting way too much on my “have to” list.
3) Take time for yourself-this is huge! Fill up your tank so you can give to others. Running on fumes creates a grumpy mommy!
I hope some of this helps 🙂
Melody
Very well said, Megan! I feel like I take on way too much and end up getting worn out by the end of the day… Just when you want to sit and relax, you start scrolling through social media on your phone. Big mistake… I end up feeling envious of all the fun advetures I see and all of the worldly things we don’t have. It’s ridiclious to feel like we have to compete with our friends via facebook. Which in return makes me even more crabby! Unfortunately, it seems many people these days struggle with lust, thanks to the endless selfies (I’m not innocent). I think your inspiration board is a fabulous remedy for that! It’s a better (and wholesome) way to find joy and serenity away from the hustle and bustle of life. Never forget, no mother is more perfect for your kids than you! Great idea, chick! I am totally going to try this! XOXO
Adventures* stinkin’ phone!
Oy! Social media has a way of making everyone else seem like they’ve got it all together, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s so easy to pick and choose what we share (or don’t share). I love the reminder you gave that we’re the best moms our kids could have – they were supposed to be ours and we were supposed to be theirs. Thanks for the reminder!
I tape inspirational quotes to the insides of my kitchen cabinets since I spend so much time in there. This really helps me!
So funny – I started out doing the same thing! I realized that taping them in my cabinets was too much work for me (I can get lazy…) when it came to switching them out and then the quotes didn’t stand out to me anymore so I wasn’t thinking about them regularly. That’s when I switched to my inspiration board.
Megan, I love this! (And you! It’s so fun to see a familiar face on here!)
I think another thing that I try to remember is that even when we resolve to do better and are trying, even suceeding, we will still have times and days that we’ll fall short, when we’ll be grumpy or lose our cool. And it’s okay. And it’s also okay to admit to our kids that we’ve messed up. I decided several years ago that I’d rather be a mom that apologizes 10 times in a day for overreacting or being a grump than be someone who just steamrolls through the day (and over my family), never admitting fault. Sometimes I think we hear ourselves losing it, know it’s wrong, but just keep barreling through, trying to somehow justify our behavior. So now I try to stop mid-rant, take a breath and say, “You know what? I shouldn’t be talking this way. I’m sorry; I was overreacting.”
Obviously, the ideal is to never get irritated in the first place, but until I get to that point (maybe with the grandkids? Ha!), giving myself some grace, and asking for it from my family, is what works for me. And, bonus, I’ve seen it translate to the way my older children handle their emotions as well–which is great because we’re all going to need that extra helping of mercy to make it through the teen years!
Thanks for this post, Megan. I am definitely going to try out an inspiration board in my room!
Thank you, Leigh! I laughed when I read your comments about apologizing 10 times a day because my kids pretty much just tune me out when I apologize now (it’s possible that they’ve heard it too many times…). I guess it’s still a better idea to apologize anyway (maybe they’re absorbing something, right?).
I think it shows a lot of self-control to be able to stop mid-rant and apologize and correct your behavior.
Thanks for your comments – I can definitely relate!
Thanks for the reminder. I can relate too. I think motherhood has helped me improve in many ways because it has made me stretch. Sometimes the stretching part of it does leave me feeling grumpy but I find that surrounding myself with people who are trying to improve and have a good attitude helps! So does having inspirational things to read and think about. But I still have grumpy days…there’s a quote I love that says “when all else fails take a nap!” I have found that just like my own baby daughter and toddler son can cry and become grumpy themselves when they are overtired or too hungry that if I am too tired or hungry then sooner or later I can become a “momster” (as my sister calls it). When I can take a nap or eat when I need to it helps!
I love your sister’s name for a grumpy mom – “momster”! Totally cracks me up! I think that your comment about being tired or hungry is a key idea because those can be “triggers” and the more we know about our triggers, the more we can try to prepare for/avoid them.
I absolutely love this challenge. This year our family is focusing specifically on being positive so when I saw this article, it was time to stop the denial. It is hard! I would’ve never thought of an inspiration board. Until I think of a spot, I think my fridge is going to become it for now. 🙂
EXACTLY what I deal with every day!!! I’m tired of being grouchy!! Thank you for the inspiration and to everyone else who commented to bring more insight. We can do this!!!!
I once bought into the same idea, that I had the problem and I needed to change. The mindset that our inclination to irritation (or grouchy mom syndrome) is a weakness and that it needs to or can be fixed, I believe denies the fact that we are human beings with a full range of emotions.
How can you appreciate the brightness of joy and laughter without knowing the full depths of sadness and tears, how can you bask in the overwhelming serenity of peace and calm without having experienced the intense heat of rage? I once believed I should be a robot, a sort of stepford wife, who laughed at the toddler spilling milk on floor on purpose or the toddler who screamed as if I was torturing her just to try to convince her to get into her car seat to take her to school, I once believed I should see all of these experiences, not as annoyances or irritations, but as opportunities to show my children how much I love them and how to control our emotions. The idea that emotions can be controlled is a myth.
Take time to watch your children, notice how intense their reactions are to slight disturbances/disruptions. Notice carefully, that their feelings are appropriate; anger that sister took her makers, sadness that mom has to leave her at school, frustration that she can’t get her shirt on. It is how they respond to the presence of these feelings that may be inappropriate. It is our job as mothers, not to teach them not to be upset about something that really is upsetting, but to teach them how to cope with feeling such intense feelings. The feelings are not the problem, ignoring them does not make them go away, the response to the feelings is the problem.
But as with everything, our children do what they see. Respond to your own anger with acknowledgement and kindness to yourself. If warranted, tell your kids how you feel. If your child hears that mommy is feeling angry because (insert grievance), you have taught him/her it’s ok to be angry, and you have taught him/her how to respond to anger (not by yelling, but by asserting your feelings). Wait and see what happens next, I am usually greeted with empathy and a willingness to help mommy out. When the situation is reversed and it is my child experiencing the intense emotion, I encourage her to do the same with my empathy, love, and support. My daughter cries over spilled milk every time, and I let her.
Jodi – you are absolutely correct that humans have a wide range of emotions and there will certainly be times when all of those emotions are warranted.
However, I have to respectfully disagree that it’s a myth that we can control our emotions. I know this because I’ve done it. And it feels incredible. I’ve recently had times when my kids did something that was frustrating to me and I began to feel my blood boil – but then I stopped myself and I calmed down and I put it into perspective. Yes, the spilled milk is annoying. But they are children and they don’t have the understanding and abilities of an adult – as such, milk is bound to spill. As their mother, it is my job to teach them that I self control can be attained and that, while certain things in life do warrant a more intense reaction, most don’t.
I believe that we are all born with both weaknesses and strengths and every person is unique. How else could we have such diversity in the world? My point in writing this article was not to say that we should become emotionless robots, but that we SHOULD be able to improve. I think it’s incredibly empowering to realize that we’re not “stuck”. We all have things about ourselves that we may not love. And the good news is that we can work to turn those weaknesses into strengths. But we have to remember that it’s going to take work.
My great-grandmother was such an unpleasant person to be around that her marriage ended in divorce and none of her kids stayed in touch with her. My grandmother was such an unpleasant person that my dad would run to his room when she got home from work and he’d stay there for the evening so he could avoid interacting with her. My dad has made great strides, but he was similarly prone to anger when my siblings and I were young.
I don’t want to be that way. In fact, I refuse to be that way. However, I can see those tendencies within myself. I have a short fuse and I am easily frustrated. Over the last few years I’ve made it a goal to overcome this and to turn this into a strength. I will attain self-control (not in the form of a robot, but in the form of a human being who understands herself and has learned how to react the way she wishes to react). I have had many successes in the last few years (and many failures) and, while it’s a long road, I know that it’s doable.
I’m excited to improve myself and I hope that everyone in this world can feel that they can do the same. We certainly all have room for it!
Correction: It’s a myth that we *can’t* control our emotions. 😉
Good response. I see the value in acknowledging and responding to our own feelings (as well as our children’s feelings) with empathy, and modeling how to express these difficult feelings appropriately. However, some people (like me) are too easily frustrated, and sometimes it is appropriate to decide to focus on something else other than my own frustration. It helps to keep things in perspective and promote a more peaceful atmosphere in the home. Yes, we have every right to call our children out when they make a choice that causes difficulty to us, and it’s appropriate to tell them how that makes us feel. But for someone like me, who is so easily annoyed and so frequently prone to frustration, I could do this all day long with my son. And sometimes the things that I’m frustrated or annoyed by are things that are not his fault, and he’s certainly not doing something wrong. It’s just that at that particular moment, I would prefer not to hear a string of endless chatter, or to look at plastic toys in the livingroom. But is he really doing something wrong by playing with his plastic toys in the livingroom? There is a time and a place for everything. Sometimes I will tell him that Mommy needs a 15 minute coffee break in the livingroom with no plastic toys. But if I told him that every time the plastic toys annoyed me, that would be excessive. So it’s better to keep that to myself and shift my focus to being grateful that I have a child in my family to play with plastic toys, since for many years I didn’t know if I ever would.
Hi Megan,
I’m glad you replied. The family experience you describe sounds exactly like mine, except that it’s my mother’s side. And your response was also exactly like mine. In no way was I going to be my mother or my grandmother, who was pissed off all the time and just moaned groaned and yelled, or just completely shut down.
I also experienced what you said about rationalizing your emotions away and believed I was “controlling” my emotions. However, I learned that shifting my focus from the anger I was experiencing from the daily frustrations of motherhood only made it go away temporarily, and it didn’t actually go away, it resurfaced as terrible back pain and anxiety. It was only through allowing these human emotions to exist, that their pull on me began to release. I respectfully disagree with you and will continue to argue that emotions cannot be controlled. It is our reaction to the emotion that we have control over.
I understand your perspective and felt this way myself a few years ago, until the candy coating just didn’t work for me anymore. I needed to face up to the fact that I have some really negative feelings that had to be addressed. Yes, people can and need to improve. And yes, We need to look inside ourselves and see where we can grow. I argue that distracting yourself from your irritation and grumpiness as you suggest (listen to podcasts, have an inspiration board) is not effective over the long term.
I felt the need to express my opinion because this was me, and this was what I attempted to do. I was supermom, I have a PhD, I worked full time and was a full time mom, I did it all just the way I envisioned and the way the experts recommend. I was not my mother. And then I crashed, I crashed hard in the form of health issues.
I was taken aback by your message to moms that we need to distract from or talk ourselves out of our normal, appropriate, human emotions and even more discouraged by your position that we should look at this as a weakness in ourselves that needs fixing. I would like to make a distinction between emotions/feelings and our behavioral response. Feelings arise whether we want them to or not, feeling is not a weakness. It’s typically how we respond to our feelings that needs fixing.
I posit that if we aim to improve our emotional intelligence and grow in mindfulness we will combat the grouchy mom syndrome 🙂
Jodi – I love that Power of Moms gives us a place to learn from each other and to discuss different ideas about how to be the best mothers we can be! I actually think that we agree in more areas than we disagree. I also agree that candy-coating isn’t something that any of us want to do – I am suggesting that we face problems in our lives and learn to overcome; not that we simply distract ourselves from them.
Thanks for your response! I appreciate hearing all the different perspectives out there.
This is *exactly* the conversation i needed to tune in to today. I was having the worst day/week in regards to facing up to my own anger and its effects on my children. I am at the beginning of my journey of learning how to recognize and process my own emotions (which i didn’t realize i had till i became a mom – i hardly ever remember getting angry or frustrated prior), and this whole debate over “accepting” vs “controlling” emotions is kind of what goes on in my mind. I’m trying to get to that place where i’m not *fighting* my emotions and judging myself for being a bad person for having them, but rather letting them pass through me and choosing *healthy* ways to express them rather than either holding them in or lashing out at others. It’s the “middle way” described in Buddhism i believe. I’m still so far from there, but i’m working on it every day. Thank you both and everyone for sharing your stories, strategies, and reflections. It’s such a relief to know i’m not alone.
Thank you for sharing this. I can’t express how important this idea is for me today, and hopefully I can remember it for the future because it is spot on!
While keeping things in perspective is helpful (inspiration board helps with this), I often need validation, to know that my feelings about the situation are important. When I ignore or try to talk myself out of those feelings, I am resentful, feel guilty, and more critical.
I do want to be more positive. I have been looking for strategies for doing this. Thank you again, very much, for showing me a point of a view that I didn’t know I needed.
Mary – I am on the same page as far as needing validation! Just the other morning it was chaos in my home and it wasn’t even 9am yet. I was getting irritated and my husband gave me a reminder to calm down (per my request), but it only made me grumpier! I later realized that if he had first acknowledged that this WAS a really frustrating way to start the day and that the situation was really hard, I would have been so much more open to listening to suggestions and also to getting in the right frame of mind on my own.
I think it’s important to validate and understand our feelings, and then make a conscious choice about how we’re going to respond in a constructive, rather than destructive way.
I loved this article, and I think the comments from others are also extremely helpful! I am a pretty happy person, but have little patience… working on it this year!
Thanks, Monica! I am so glad to have read all the comments as well – I think we’ve been given a ton of great ideas and encouragement.
What has helped me the most is to remember there are a finite number of times something will happen. This is something both my husband and I made a conscious effort to remember back in the toddler days. You know those days when you just didnt’ WANT to pick the child up again or read this book again or play that game again or ….. we’d remind ourselves that eventually we wouldn’t be picking him up EVER AGAIN, or playing this pretend game again, or having him want us to read to him again. Ever.
Now that he’s a teen, I find it STILL works to remember that the “annoyances” are finite in number and that puts it in perspective for me. And the child even joins in the spirit of the thing. For example, last night: Pretty much EVERY time he brings his hamper down to the washing machine to put his laundry in, he leaves the hamper there in front of the washer. And since we have no official “laundry” room in our house and our washer is somewhat awkwardly placed in a little hallway that leads to the kitchen, having the hamper there is something you actually notice and have to move around. And last night, for about the millionth time, I found myself saying “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST PUT THIS HAMPER BACK?!?!” and my son popped around the corner and said “welp, that’s one less time you’ll ever have to say THAT again!” and put the hamper away.
So, it’s basically the old cliche that you won’t realize what you had until it’s gone, except that I’m already accepting that I WILL miss it. Maybe not the actual hamper in the actual way, but I know that the annoyances are part of the whole of his childhood and that doesn’t last forever.
I find that just knowing that, reminding myself that, and truly UNDERSTANDING that, helps me not be annoyed in the first place.
Diane, my mom always used to say, “this too shall pass” when I complained about difficulties (like getting absolutely no sleep when my new baby arrived). I am glad you brought this up – I think it ties in really well with keeping the right perspective. If you realize, like you said, that all of these things will eventually end (and then we may even miss it!) that will be a big help. I also like to think of this on the flip side – I think about how my kids will get to an age where they won’t want to sit on my lap and read stories anymore, they won’t want to hold my hand while crossing the street, they won’t want to sing songs with me before bed, etc. And I know I will miss those! So, when I’m feeling frustrated with the demands that accompany the role of a mother, it’s helpful to look at all the beautiful things that won’t be around forever either.
Thanks for your comment!
Thanks Megan for the suggestions, and congrats on being a person of light that is breaking unhelpful family patterns.
I can say either of these things in my mind and it gets me closer to being a cheerful Mom rather than a grouchy one:
1. “I feel anger coming on. I recognize that emotion. I now choose to react with a coping strategy that does not affect others negatively.”
2. “I am about to burst and I don’t want to.” …Then quickly recall something heard in a podcast or written on an inspiration board.
I think the author just has some good suggestions on how to react to the negative emotions that come. But like Jodi, I acknowledge that it is not inherently bad to just feel- anything. This understanding helps me not get down on myself for the grouchy emotional times that do come sometimes in mothering.
It is nice to share ideas about how to choose not to STAY grouchy.
I love that you are able to say those things to yourself when you feel like you’re going to have a melt down. I think you’ve hit on a really key idea – that you acknowledge your feelings, and then you make a deliberate decision to choose to respond in a positive way.
Thanks for your insight!
Prayer is very helpful. Asking God for forgiveness and help each time I get angry. And learning to be patient with myself- it is a process. Thank you for your article, very inspiring.
Thanks for bringing this up Jeni! Prayer is essential for me and a great tool to keep me humble and to help me understand what I should be doing. I think the Lord is ready and willing to help; we just have to remember to ask – knock and ye shall receive.