I know a lot of moms. Some of them are friends from my hometown, others are coworkers, some are classmates, and still others are clients. Lately, I’ve been observing a certain common mom denominator that seems to reach easily across all socioeconomic, racial, religious, and geographic boundaries.
This unifying trait is the uncontrollable urge to trash talk our children. Kind of like road rage, but directed at really small, non-driving persons. It’s mom rage. Sometimes it comes out when you’re not even mad at them. Or when they’re not even around. I overheard this conversation in class on Thursday:
“S., your boys are so cute!”
“Little fuckers.”
It just comes out. It’s like Mommy tourettes. It makes sense if you think about it – you can’t be just one thing all the time. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Children require a lot of love, gentleness, and understanding. If I’m operating at this supreme level of mom-ness 95% of the time, what do you think is going to come out the other 5%? Nothing good, I promise you. And I’m not even at the 95% goodness level. I’m more like 82%.
Another issue is the threats. A friend of mine, who coincidentally is operating in the 98% goodness range, admitted yesterday that she told her 10-month-old son that “Santa was watching” during a particularly irritating clothing change. You may argue that this isn’t particularly harmful, but I counter that it’s pretty early to be instilling a fear of big brother.
Besides, it’s a slippery slope from “Santa’s watching” to “I’ll feed you to the pigs!” Which is something I said to my own little angel during a playful tickle fight this week. Ha ha! She didn’t think it was so funny. Her big eyes filled with tears and she said, “You’ll miss me when I’m gone!” Oops. I had to do some hugging and backtracking there. (I’ll admit, I felt really bad about that one.)
Next comes name-calling. In my internship I work at a family counseling center. On Tuesday I met with one of my favorite clients, a 9 year-old we’ll call T. Prior to the appointment, I spoke on the phone with Mom, who just knew something was bothering T. Mom told me that T. had been difficult, mouthy, emotional. At one point T. regressed and called Mom a “poopy face.” (A slur that is generally the preferred fare of the kindergarten set.) Mom just couldn’t figure out why – could I? Halfway through our session I get the giddy news that Mom called T. a “shit head” this week. Hmm. Shit head translates pretty easily to poopy face, wouldn’t you agree? Oh, what ecstasy it was to play the part of the professional and hand out ‘homework’ on name-calling.
It just wasn’t appropriate at the time, but I’ve got to call Mom and tell her about the time I asked my own 2 year-old, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” It’s quite possibly my most shinning moment as a mother. L. had developed a fun little trick that involved running top speed down our very steep dirt driveway. One day she pulled this little trick with a lollipop in her mouth (danger!) while I was busy loading the car.
Of course I yelled, threatened, and all that good stuff from the top of the driveway. And of course she ignored me. I snapped. I jumped in the car and started driving towards her. She screamed with glee and ran all the faster. Throwing the car in park, I lunged out, snatched her by the arm, swatted her butt, and made the aforementioned query. Not getting a satisfactory answer, I grabbed the lollipop out of her mouth and threw it in the woods. “Naughty girls don’t get lollipops!!” Yeow.
Once our happy group was safely buckled in the car, I apologized profusely and tried to explain why Mommy got so dang fired up. The little heathen looked at me with wide eyes and said, “I’m telling Grammie what you did.” The animal gives as good as she gets, I’ll give her that.
Kids will do this to you. It’s impossible to avoid, I don’t care who you are. It’s no coincidence that Mother Teresa didn’t have any children. If she did, I promise you sainthood would have been out of the picture.
Fortunately, there’s some good news. If you’re a good enough mom most of the time, your children will forgive and forget. In researching for this piece, I interviewed L. about the things I say to her. This is how the conversation went:
“L., what does Mommy say that makes you happy?”
“I’m two! But at my birthday soon I’ll be three!”
“Great, but that’s not the question. What does Mommy say that makes you happy?”
“Mommy! Guess what?”
“What?”
“You’re stuck with it! Ha ha. Sick burn.”
“Argh! Okay. What does Mommy say that makes you sad?”
“Nothing! Mommy only says nice things to L.”
In the end, it’s a game of sincerity and mathematics. Parents who rag on their children day in and day out are telling their children they are failures. Parents who ignore their children day in and day out are telling their children they are unimportant. But parents who say, “I love you” every day; “Yes” most days; and occasionally ask “What the fuck is wrong with you?” are sending a different message. The message is simple – “I love you. But I’ve got limits, man.” And haven’t you heard? Kids need limits.
