Suck It Up, Momma!

If a tree falls in my forest and my kids are around to hear it, can I scream or will that cause them emotional damage?

To me, the hardest part of being a parent is the mental resilience it requires. Single me could cry any time I wanted (or needed). I could yell any time I wanted. I could argue with anyone I wanted. Loudly. And with bad words. I could experience all emotions I needed to experience and no one was impacted but me. Sad, happy, frustrated, excited, angry… crazy, whatever. If I needed to fall apart for a minute, I could. But then…

When I decided to become a mom, all I could think about was the possibility of holding a tiny, beautiful little baby that would be a part of me. Romantic, beautiful, and perfect… ahhhhh, parenthood.

It seemed so simple! Hug the baby, kiss the baby, feed the baby, clean the baby, dress the baby, don’t wake the sleeping baby. What’s everyone complaining about? Parents saying they’re stressed. Pff. Amateurs. Not me! {The equivalent of a character saying “I’ll be right back” in a scary movie. Plot twist: they won’t be back.}

To be fair, or more directly, to make an excuse for my ignorance, I wasn’t really around babies or kids much before I had my own. I didn’t really know what I was up against. The saying “ignorance is bliss” was spot on. But I was quickly slapped in the face by the strong, open hand of reality the moment I became a parent and instantly understood what tha fuq every parent before me was lamenting. My exhaustion didn’t matter to my brand new little babe. She was hungry. Her diaper needed to be changed. She was mad. And only I could fix it. Apparently there’s no reasoning with a baby! Babies are so unreasonable. Can I please sleep??

The dichotomy between meeting the needs of this tiny, helpless little being and meeting the needs of myself as a human being was too strong to ignore. And I didn’t know how to reconcile the equally important but dreadfully opposite priorities. It’s the whole “put-on-your-air-mask-before-helping-others” thing you hear the flight attendants say in the safety briefing. I can’t help anyone if I can’t breath myself. Except I was too tired to reach for my mask. So none of us could breathe. And I didn’t even know what it was my baby needed.

Babies aren’t born with the ability to speak so they cry. It’s up to us to learn the language of their cries as quickly as possible. I call it “Cry language immersion”. Is it an “I’m hurt” cry? An “I’m hungry cry?” An “I’m tired” cry? An “I’m bored” cry? An “I noticed you finally fell asleep after taking care of me all day but I want to see what it’s like to stay awake all night now so wake ur arse up and pay attention to me” cry? Is it an “I’m exhausted and may die” cry? Oh wait. That’s me. And yes, that’s what it meant. But eventually I learned my kids’ language. Not fluently, but proficiently.

Learning how to interpret my babies’ behaviors helped calm some of the frustrations that come with being a new parent. But in the middle of that learning, I realized something I wish I’d understood before: no matter how frustrated or exhausted or mad or lonely or used up I felt, it didn’t change the fact that my baby still had needs that only I could meet.

It was the realization that I couldn’t fall apart. No matter what, my kids’ needs physically, emotionally, financially, all HAD to come before mine. If my world was crumbling around me, I still had to be a mom. My kids’ needs didn’t pause for me to have a quick tantrum. My kids couldn’t “hold on for a minute” while I screamed in frustration. I mean, they could have but then the whole school would have heard about how “mommy screamed really loud in her pillow last night”.

So what do we parents do when life gets out of hand? Is it really damaging for our kids to see our emotions? I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist… {unless my Groupon for Life Coach certification counts} but I have to believe that there is a learning opportunity here.

I’m big on trying my best to teach my kids to be mentally resilient. They have to be able to live in a world that isn’t fair or even particularly kind. So maybe it’s not a bad thing that they know parents get emotional sometimes too. Sometimes parents argue. It doesn’t mean the family is breaking up. It doesn’t mean that mommy and daddy don’t like each other. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. But even so, we still need to be tempered with our reactions as the example, right?!

As someone who has a big personality and big emotions, this is something I’ll always struggle with. But all we can do as parents is our best. So… I’ll just keep doing that and hope it doesn’t turn out like the time I tried my best to back out of the garage without hitting my husband’s car.