Where the Wild Thing Is: Shame and Parenting

Last night, I blew up in a big way. So many factors go into a mom melt-down that I can barely parse them out, but if I had to guess, I'd break it down like this: demanding kids - high on sugar, a poor night's sleep all around, a much needed kid-free weekend with mate and (masculine types beware of cooties) a massive dose of PMS. The combination was lethal and I erupted in a hurricane-like rage, blowing down six-year-olds in my wake. I managed to give myself a time-out, but stopped one short of responsible as I continued to shout for several beats through the slammed door at the offending parties.

Hmmmmm. I'm so ashamed when I lose it like this. It only happens when there is a perfect storm of stress - which should give me some hope or perspective. But it doesn't. I'm not an uncontrollable witch all the time to my children. But when I am, I feel like melting into nothing, feel like I've harmed them, broken them in ways that they'll always remember; if not consciously, then somewhere deep down, where the ego lives and absorbs all the shock waves of early emotional experience.

Nobody really talks about the shame in parenting, the guilt you feel when the well of patience is dry and the buckets keep on coming and you start to get really pissed off at the buckets. I wonder if other people feel as much shame as I do. I know that Chris does, that we both grapple with the tiny people, their demands, our needs, the balance of life. But how to prevent the episodes that inevitably lead to shame is a problem I have yet to solve. No matter how much you think about doing things differently, changing the triggers, avoiding sugar, taking time for myself, spending quality time with the kids, some times, the hurricane comes anyway. You can be having the best of days, then realize that your head hurts from solving too many sibling conflicts or that you're tired of cleaning up the same mess for the fifth time.

I always apologize to Harper when I blow-up, but apologies never make me feel any better and I doubt they make her feel any better either. In fact, the relative emotional uselessness of an apology only serves to augment my shame, as if I'm trying to absolve myself for sins that cannot be withdrawn. Every night, I check the girls before I go to bed, cover them, kiss them and whisper how much I love them as they lay so still and so beautiful. But on rocky nights, when I look at their perfect forms, their quiet, I feel even more sad about the bits of happiness that should still be with them that day.

What I worry about most is that Harper will probably be the same. The style that we have - mostly patient, adoring love, accented by blow-ups is the way I grew up. I wanted things to be different for her, but we always bring what we know. Maybe with more enlightenment, more knowledge or maturity, but the past always seems to creep in even with the most mindful barriers in place. On the bad days, I wish, just a little, that I 'd never seen so many storms when I was young.