Parenting Blog

I was at a social gathering with the most beautiful toddler.  His grandmother was sitting with him while he played with his toy cars.  “What color is that one?” she would ask, and this little boy, only two years old, would say “Wed!” or “Boo!”  He even knew “Geen” and “Yewwow.”  Then she showed him the aqua-colored car, and he said “Boo?”  “That’s Turquoise.” corrected Grandma. “Can you say Turquoise?”

Watching this little boy’s face, I realized that he felt bad.  Then it hit me.  He felt dumb.  Here he is, only two, and he knows all these colors, and he feels bad because he doesn’t Turquoise! Think about it. By definition, the game escalates through all the right answers until the child is stumped.  It wouldn’t matter if the two year old knew what chartreuse was but then stumbled on mauve.  His take-away is that he was tested and he failed. HE doesn’t know that he has done better than most kids his age.

For the grownup, this is a fun game, a teaching game.  For even the smartest child, it’s an exercise that always ends up making him feel dumb.

So don't test your youngster, and don't let Grandma do it either. It doesn't matter if you're quizzing a toddler about what color the cars are, or a preschooler on what the stop sign says; or a budding genius on trigonometry.  The game is designed to continue until the child fails, so sooner or later they don't know the answer, and they'll feel like they should, no matter how unreasonable it is. That self-doubt can last for the rest of his life, even if he’s brilliant.

Last weekend, I saw the Jonathan Demme film Rachel Getting Married, which by the way, I loved.

Kym, a recovering addict, leaves rehab where she’s spent the past 9 months, to go home for her sister’s wedding.  We soon find out that Kym has been unable to kick her addictions over the past ten years, despite being in and out of rehab.  Eventually the reason becomes clear.  Ten years ago when Kym was 16 and zonked on drugs, she drove the family car off a bridge.  Her little brother died in the accident.  

Kym can’t forgive herself.  She can’t even live with herself, and she’s spent the past ten years trying to do herself in with her addictions.

At the turning point of the movie, Kym goes to see her mother.  She needs her mom’s forgiveness, so that she can begin to forgive herself.  It’s almost like she needs permission to go on living.

When Kym says to her mother “You knew I was an addict.  Why did you leave him with me?” my visceral reaction, as a mother, was, “She’s right! The whole movie everyone’s been blaming her, but they knew she was an addict. I would be careful about letting my young child be driven by a 16 year old under the best of circumstances.  How on earth could this mother have been so irresponsible?”  

I’ve always loved Debra Winger, so I assumed that of course her character would step up to the plate, to reassure her daughter, “You’re right.  It was my fault.  I don’t know what I was thinking. I must have been in such in denial about your addiction. Yes, you screwed up, but I did too.  And you were only 16.  I was the grownup and I didn’t act like it. You shouldn’t have to bear this burden alone.”  And then, of course the mother would hug the daughter.

Instead, she snarls, “ I didn’t know you’d KILL him.  You weren’t supposed to KILL him!” and punches her daughter in the face. Kym punches her back and we see everything we need to know about where her venomous side comes from.

Kym stumbles out of the house and deliberately crashes the car, trying to kill herself but sustaining only bruises.  The deepest injuries, of course, are internal.

The next day at the wedding, her mother avoids her.  Kym desperately needs her mother’s love and forgiveness, some apology, some responsibility taken by her mother, some closure. If her mother still blames her, beats up on her for this – literally – forgiving herself becomes almost impossible for Kym.  Instead, she gets only the most perfunctory goodbye hug.

We could excuse this mother, saying that she hasn’t yet healed from the death of her son ten years ago.  But her attack on her daughter shows us why she hasn’t been able to heal, to forgive, to move on.  Every attack is a defense.  This mother attacks her daughter because Kym has come perilously close to the truth:  It was indeed the mother’s responsibility to insure that her young child was not left with an addict.  To avoid facing that truth, which is unbearable to her, she blames her daughter, even to the point of being willing to sacrifice her daughter to further addiction and early death.

You may be wondering:  If the mother takes responsibility for her son’s death, doesn’t that let the daughter off the hook for the fact that she drove a car when she was stoned?  No.  It is in these moments of parenthood, when we do the hard thing and take 100% responsibility for our own actions, that we shape our children’s character by modeling for them how to step up and be 100% accountable for THEIR actions.  

Like most tragedies, this one was over-determined.  If EITHER the mother OR daughter had acted responsibly, it could have been avoided.  And as long as this mother still refuses to shoulder her share of the responsibility, naturally her daughter will bristle as the idea that she should do so.  If this is too much for a grown woman to face, how much harder for a sixteen year old, or even a 26 year old?   

So this mother, unwilling to face the tough truth of her own accountability, foists all the blame onto her daughter’s shoulders.  Having lost her son, she now sacrifices her daughter.

This is the stuff of Greek tragedies.  But watching it, I had my own Ah HA! moment.  What about parents in more normal situations?

Do we ever do things that are bad for our kids rather than face the truth about our own behavior, our own mistakes, our own compromises with life?  What might those smaller actions look like?
*Letting our husband yell at our child rather than facing the truth about our marriage?
*Punishing our kids when they bring home a bad report card because we can’t face the truth that we haven’t been monitoring their progress at school on a daily basis?
*Blaming our child for not reminding us when we miss the deadline for something they needed, or just because we’re angry and out of sorts, and they get on our nerves?
*Pushing our kids to win the gold medal because it takes the sting out of feeling like a failure at our job?

Is it possible that all of our bad parenting actions stem from our inability to face something, which we then take out on our kids because they're less powerful?

My 12 year old daughter rushed into the house from running an errand on our block. She blurted out that she had seen someone from the local Animal Shelter giving away kittens, and asked if she could have one. I was busy cooking and absent-mindedly reminded her that her dad is allergic to cats.

Over the next ten minutes, my daughter continued to press the issue, wheedling and whining. To me, the subject was closed, and I finally impatiently asked her to pick her shoes up and put them away. She yelled at me that she was already busy putting her backpack away.

At this point, I realized I had better start paying attention.  I like to think that I'm not a total dolt where parenting is concerned.  
And here’s the Ah HA!
I realized that my ignoring her feelings was part of what was triggering her disrespect.
We were in this together.
And I couldn’t change her, but if I changed me, she would change too.

 I reached behind me and turned off the stove.  I took a deep breath.

Then I walked over, looked her in the eye, and calmly and kindly said "Honey, I see that you're upset, but we don't speak to each other like that in this house. I know you don't usually act unkindly, so you must really be upset. What's going on?"

In an only slightly milder voice she blurted "Well, I'm really mad at you, and I don't even know why!!" and began to cry.

I hugged her. Then I began offering hypotheses. "You've been upset since you came back in the house. Did something happen on your walk?"

"Of course it did!” she cried, "Those kittens!! Mom, I can't just leave them to be killed! We have to take them! I feel like a bad person!" and she sobbed.

I held her and reflected her feelings: "You want to rescue those kittens. It makes you mad at Dad and me that you can't take them all home. You feel a responsibility to help when you see something wrong. It hurts you not to be able to help when someone needs you. You came home hoping I would let you adopt the kittens, and I didn't take your request seriously at all."

"I felt like you weren't even listening!" she sobbed. "I felt like you didn't understand!" I acknowledged that she was right; I had not understood the depth of feeling behind her request, and had in fact been distracted and barely listened to her.

After she calmed down, she acknowledged that her Dad does have a severe allergy to cats, and we explored other ways she could help: Donate. Volunteer at the Animal Shelter and sit with the kittens outside to give them away. Publicize to others the plight of abandoned animals.

Then she hugged me, and said "Thanks Mom. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I don't know why I was so mad at you. I love you." And went off happily.

I share this long anecdote to point out that so often kids of all ages have strong feelings that they need help with. Not knowing what to do with these feelings, they act out towards the people they feel safest with: their parents.

If we get distracted by their disrespect, or react angrily, we miss the real message. They end up feeling wounded, misunderstood, alienated. They get angry and attack us, or build up resentment and distrust. A rift appears in the relationship, and if we don’t respond quickly, it widens.

So what did I do here? Instead of focusing on her behavior, I looked at the feelings under the behavior.

If we can instead empathize with our kids, look for the upset under the disrespect, and remind them of who they really are ("You don't usually act unkindly"), we create an opening. The inevitable ruptures of daily life become opportunities to teach them so many lessons: how to process their emotions, how to repair an emotional rift, how to problem solve, that they can trust us. Most importantly, we end the interaction with a stronger relationship.

But, hopefully, not an extra kitten in the house.