My Quick Tongue

Remember watching other parents before you were a parent? Always judging, thinking about how you would do it better and being able to see so clearly what the parent was doing wrong. OK, maybe I’m the only person in the world who did that, but I confess, I did.

One of the things that always drove me nuts was the famous "If you don't stop that right now, I'm turning this car around!" or "If you can't mind your manners, we’re leaving." It wasn’t so much the idea of leaving or turning the car around that bothered me, it was the fact that everyone involved knew that the threats were idle and no one paid any attention.  The parent would go back to what they were doing before, and the kids would continue to misbehave.

I vowed many years ago, you know when I had no idea what it took to be a parent and I was pretty confident I could do it better than anyone on earth, that I would never use those threats unless I was willing to follow through on them.

Watching parents, watching kids learn that their parents didn’t really mean what they say, taught me that idle threats do a lot of damage. If parents can’t keep their word when times are hard, why would they keep them when times are good? And if kids learn that their parents aren’t serious when they speak, why would they listen when their parents try to impart wisdom or advice about anything?

So, the promise to myself was instilled. For good or bad, I had decided unequivocally that this was how I was going to interact with my kids.

Today I heard these words come out of my mouth, "That’s it buddy, we're out of here. You didn’t listen to Daddy, and we're going home." I said it. I really did. No warning to him, no preparation that we might leave if he didn't shape up. I just said it. I was frustrated, he needed to be disciplined, he was being pretty disrespectful to his father and I wasn't going to tolerate it.

So we left.

We left his favorite class. The class he looks forward to all week long. We left 15 minutes early. The last 15 minutes are his favorite. It's the singing, dancing and playing with the parachute part of the class. And we left. 

I picked him up while he was kicking and screaming and took him to the car. I kept repeating, "I know you want to go back in buddy, but you didn’t listen to Daddy. I'm sorry you’re so upset." And he continued to cry and wail, "No! No! I wanna go back in!"

I still feel sick thinking about how hard he cried in the backseat. It wasn't the spoiled, temper-tantrum cry. It was a heart-wrenching sad cry. My husband looked at me with a little bit of fear, but didn’t say anything. In fact, he was amazing. He backed me up completely. He didn’t agree with my decision at all, but in front of our son, he backed me up.

Still feeling queasy and knowing that I reacted too quickly, I gently helped him out of his car seat when we got home. I gave him a big hug and said, "I'm sorry we had to leave class. Why did we leave?" He whimpered and looked up at me with a protruding lower lip and said, "I didn't listen to Daddy."

I wanted to cry too. He was so sad. It took everything I had not say, "I'm sorry!" and take him back.

You know, I expected to feel good about this or something. I thought I would be happy that he understood what I was trying to teach him. Acting out and not listening are not OK, no matter how excited he is. Lesson learned. Hooray. Except I feel horrible.

Now just to be clear, I'm not sorry that I followed through on what I said. I’m sorry that I said it. And I’m sorry I said it so quickly.  I didn’t think, and I didn’t talk to my husband about it, I just blurted it out.

I was talking to my husband about it later and I apologized for taking over like that. I said I really regretted ripping him out of something he loves so much. I reacted quickly and once the words were out of my mouth, I knew I wouldn’t go back, that it just sends such a horrible message to make a threat and not follow through.

My husband agreed with that part, and he was very generous with me. He was upset that I didn't consult him first, and rightly so. He said that while saying something and not following through was bad, he was concerned about how quickly and unilaterally I had made the decision. He was right. I made the decision without even talking to my husband about it, and because I didn’t take two seconds to breathe and say, "Listen, you get one warning, and this is it. What you’re doing is not OK. You keep it up, and I will take you home."

Then my husband said something that I can’t shake, "One of my favorite things about Jack is his spirit. I just hope that what happened today didn’t break that spirit." I almost threw up on my shoes. He didn’t say this to be hurtful or to punish me. It was a genuine comment about how he feels. I know because we’ve spoken about it before. We both love his wild and free spirit.

I'm no ego-maniac, I know that this one incident is not going to break my child’s spirit. But it’s horrible to upset your own child. One of the emotions I remember most vividly about holding my son those first few weeks after he was born was the fierce, almost over-powering need to protect him. It never occurred to me that one of the things I may have to protect him from is my own quick tongue.

No matter how long I'm at this mothering business, the need to slow down and think before I act and speak is something I always need to be reminded of. I had no idea that this was part of the parenting package. I find myself asking the question I think we all ask, "Why didn’t anyone warn me about this?"

I have never been known for my patience. So while my ability to be patient has grown since becoming a mother (my husband may disagree with that) my immediate need to solve problems has not waned one bit. It's been a strength of mine all my life, but I'm seeing that as a mom, if I don’t manage it, it may turn out to be quite the weakness.

Author: Sarah

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