Everybody has them: the days when we question why we ever thought we could do this parenting thing in the first place. Those are the days when we realize that we know absolutely nothing and we were silly for ever thinking otherwise. They are painful, isolating days. But it is crucial to know that they happen to every parent everywhere.
So today I am going to attempt to share one of mine. I want to share this story without embarrassing any of my children (now or in the future), so if some details seem a little vague, that is why. Because at the end of the day, friends, these terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days do not define our children.
Let’s set the scene, shall we?
It was football season. My husband is a football coach. During football season (August-November), I am typically flying solo. This was one of those evenings where he wouldn’t be home till late. We had four young boys at the time. Our twins had just started kindergarten a month prior and we were all adjusting to new routines and tighter schedules. Can you see already how this is setting up for the perfect storm?
It started with dinner…
Doesn’t it seem like things always start around the dinner table? Or is that just at my house? Anyway, one child decided he did not want to eat his food, but rather than leave it–and his plate–on the table, he angrily threw his plate full of food onto the floor, shattering the melamine plate and creating a lovely mess. We had established a rule in our house that if you were being intentionally destructive (not the words we used with the kids, obviously), you would sit in time-out outside on a patio chair. This outside time-out usually helped the destructive child calm down pretty quickly, so we thought it was effective. Until that night. My destructive child that night knew the rule and angrily sat in a patio chair outside. But instead of sitting and calming down like usual, he kept scooting his chair back to one of the windows and banging his head against the window. All while yell-crying at the top of his lungs. It was basically a GIANT meltdown. I moved his chair away from the window several times. He persistently rocked it back to the window, never relenting on that horrendous cry.
It wasn’t working.
In my desire to keep him safe, I finally brought him back inside and told him to sit on his bed hoping maybe this would help him calm down. Nope. He was in a bunk bed at the time and started trying to destroy his bunk as well as his brother’s bunk. All the while, his yell-cry continued. It was horrible. I still had three other boys, though, so I tried to clean up dinner (a little). My youngest son was safely–and calmly–buckled into his high chair. I gave him a couple toys to play with and ushered my other two sons upstairs to get them ready to take a bath.
My melting-down boy was not relenting on the yell-cry or the bed destruction attempts. So I carried him–thrashing all the way–to one of the little toddler rockers we kept in our playroom. It had a buckle and I thought this would be the safest way to keep him contained while he sat and I prayed he’d calm down. I was trying my very best to stay calm. Y’all, it was hard to do. I buckled him into the chair while he was trying to hit me and kick me all the while still yell-crying. In the meantime, I heard one of my boys in the bathroom whining, “Mom! He just peed on me!!” I was about to go from the playroom to the bathroom when I saw a car pull into our driveway. I didn’t recognize the car, and at first thought they must be just using our driveway to turn around. But no.
The doorbell rang.
Even my boy in time-out was curious enough about the doorbell ring that he stopped crying for a few seconds. I told my boys to stay where they were as I went downstairs to solve the mini-mystery at our front door (To help you visualize this better, I need to tell you that my upstairs hallway is visible from the entrance, so I could see my kids instantly if they came out of the playroom and/or bathroom). By the time I got to the front door, the yell-cry had resumed and I could hear fighting from the bathroom. Great. I opened the door to find a genuinely concerned man.
“Is everything OK?” he asked. This concerned neighbor explained that he lived on the street behind ours and a few doors down. “I heard a lot of crying and just wanted to check to make sure everything was OK.”
I can’t even imagine what I looked like! I was mortified. I assured the man that my son was alright and not injured in any way, just having a major meltdown. As I was saying this, I looked up and saw that instead of unbuckling himself from his time-out chair (which he was totally capable of doing), he had flipped it over and was crawling out into the hallway, wearing the toddler rocker like a turtle shell on his back! I don’t know if the man looked up and saw, but after a moment of me assuring him that I had not hurt my child in any way and that he was alright, he apologized for bothering us. I thanked him for checking because it very well could have been a different situation entirely. He left.
This was a scene I will never forget.
When I turned around, my son carrying the time-out chair on his back was still crawling down the hallway with snot and saliva dripping from his worn-out face. But he had finally stopped crying. My now-naked sons were fighting in the bathroom over the pee incident. Thankfully my youngest had fallen asleep in his high chair. I helped my turtle son get right-side-up, then returned him in the time-out chair to the playroom promising that if he remained calm, I would come back to talk to him as soon as his brothers were bathed. I did. I brought up my sleepy son from his high chair and got everybody to bed.
Then I went to my room and cried. And prayed. I felt like the worst mother in history and a perfect stranger had in small measure witnessed my failure. When my husband called to tell me he was on his way home tonight, I told him–only partly joking–that I was going to leave when he got here. I wondered why on earth I had ever thought for one minute that I could be a mother. I blamed myself for my son’s meltdown. After all, if I were doing things “right,” that would not have happened, right? Wrong.
Children Don’t Come With Intructions
We have all heard the quip about how parenting doesn’t come with instructions and we all lament that we don’t have all the answers. But what I have come to learn–and am still learning–is that it is impossible to give instructions for raising a human child. And sometimes there are not answers. Every. single. child. is different. Very different. My biggest responsibility as a mother is to love my children unconditionally. Even on those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. Beyond that, I need to feed, clothe, and shelter them. But I cannot control or change these individuals. They will–for their entire lives–make choices for themselves. Because I love them, I want to teach them the very best I can to make the best choices possible, but I cannot make their choices for them and I cannot assume responsibility for their every action. This is hard. It may be the most difficult part about being a mother.
If you have lived through a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day already (or 10+…), I hope this helps you know you are not alone. If you haven’t, I hope my story will help when you do. Know that you are not alone. Let that knowledge bring you strength and joy even amid discouraging circumstances.
Keep going. Keep loving.
The good news is that children do grow up and then they bring Grandchildren and it makes it all worth it! LOL
You are brave to share such a personal experience, I think the key, which you were able to do, is to keep yourself in control as much as possible. It can be a struggle, but those times don’t define you or your children, as you pointed out.
Yeah, self control is ROUGH.
Thank you so much for sharing this story. It takes me back in time to days which were really hard and which made me wonder why I wanted to be a mother of a large family. I often felt like such a failure! (I wasn’t always as calm as you are!) But after wanting to throw in the towel, peace would eventually come and remind me that it was all worth it. But wow, it’s hard! So to all of you young (and even not-so-young) moms, keep plugging along, and it will be okay. These children of ours are so unique and so wonderful, even if they test us to the limit.
Thanks, Cathi! I am so grateful for your perspective!