I have been a parent for seven years now. I have learned through parenting books, magazines, and counselors that we tend to parent how we saw our parents raise us. This can’t be a shocker to anyone. And yet it’s interesting to me that I feel a jolt when another example organically comes about in my life and I am outside of myself seeing it all unfold before my eyes.
A year ago, when my youngest daughter was four, I was trying to get her to come and pick up the massive mess that she created. She was digging her heels in and telling me, “No!” But she was screaming. I stood where I was and I kept calling for her over and over again to no avail. Then I felt the Chester come out of my chest as I yelled, “Get your butt over here right now!” It fell with a boom and then as I saw my daughter walk towards me with tears streaming down her face, looking down at the floor, my heart crashed. I had done exactly what my father had done when we were little. I used my voice to intimidate. And I know I heard those exact same words come out of his mouth before. Others will tell me, you were just being what any parent would do. Maybe. But I know that things could have been different. Especially after learning about “Good Inside” from Dr. Becky Kennedy. I could have walked over to my child and got down on her level and spoke in a normal level speaking voice, or even softer, and while looking in her eyes, I could have asked her kindly to go clean up her mess. Would it have worked? I don’t know, because I didn’t do it. I will say, the times that I did check my temper and the impatience brewing because of the 99 other things I had to do in that moment and got down on my children’s level to ask them to do something, it’s a whole other experience. And oftentimes, because they receive that eye-to-eye connection from their mother, they do what I ask them to do.
Chester is my father. He was smack dab in the middle of my grandparents’ five children, with three brothers and one sister. Back in the 1950’s I think most Mid-Western children were raised with very strict rules. I know that my grandparents went a few steps beyond that. My grandfather was abusive. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. And I hate even writing that out. So, my father was taught to get loud and to use punishment as a form of discipline. In turn, my brothers and I were spanked when we were kids. I know the anxiety and the fear that spanking caused my brothers and me… Not to mention the sadness… Which enabled me to leave that part of my family history back with my childhood. I will never spank my children. And my children push my buttons, believe me. But no. That will never happen. Sadly, I will admit, however, to losing my temper and getting to the point where I have yelled in a way that only causes me shame and regret. And my girls are still young. They are only 7 and 5. It takes a lot of work to unteach myself what I witnessed and bared for years growing up. It’s all about control. Either you lose it, or you keep it. When I lose it, I am flushed with memories of my dad losing it with my brothers and me. And I hate it.
I want to clarify that my father loves my brothers and I very much. Like my mother said, her and my father did the best they could with the tools they were given. I have heard many people say this recently about their own parents. And I like this. I really do. We are giving space for our parents to be human beings and for us to not hold all this resentment towards them, which winds up hurting us anyway. Something my father did that his father didn’t do, was that he made sure to tell us that he loved us every morning and every night before we went to bed. He kissed us. He hugged us. He held us. One of my favorite memories is how my little hand could fit around his pinky finger just perfectly as we would walk side by side. Like Dr. Becky says, two things can be true. My father showed us that he loved us. My father also had a temper. And I know now that he wasn’t taught what to do with all that anger when he was young. So, he did things comparable to what his father did.
As I’m getting older, I am very aware that my parents are getting older. My children have been asking me a lot of questions about my childhood lately. Which made me think about how little I actually know about my parents’ childhoods. I know some things… I have about three or four well known stories from my father and my mother that I could spout off to you right now. But that’s not a lot of information, nor is it a generous supply of memories that I am safekeeping. I do not want my parents to leave this planet before I get to know them. Really get to know them. Not just as the parent. But as the person that came to be from the childhood that preceded them. So, the other day I asked my dad to tell me three or four memories of his childhood that was prior to him becoming a teenager. This is a text that he just sent me:
My father, who loved movies, took his family to the movies in 1959 to see a double hitter… “The Attack of the Killer Shrews” and, of course, “The Giant Gila Monster.” I was 6 years old at the time. Back then we wore suits and ties to go to the shows. I spent the night hiding behind the cinema’s seats to be safe. On the way out, we had to use the restroom. My father asked the maître D where the restrooms were. We couldn’t find it. So, my dear sweet dad grabbed the maître D by the collar and threatened him. I was traumatized, no doubt. All I remember about the first movie is a dog dressed up as a wild Shrew boy who ate a guy’s toe off that had gone from the house to their boat because it stuck through a hole in the side of a barrel. The second movie, I remember the guy standing on the street smoking and then disappeared after hearing the “monster.” They killed the poor lizard by driving a car with gas cans.
There were a few key pieces in this memory of my father’s that ignited my own knowledge of who I know my dad to be. One, my dad always took us to the movie theaters. Many of our friends would ask my brothers and I, how have we seen so many movies? We were movie buffs. It’s just something that we did and that we continue to do. Secondly, the traumatizing display of displaced frustration. I dealt with this a lot when I watched my father speak to people at the dentist’s office, the doctor’s office, movie theaters, stores, really any place of business where my father was asked to pay money. Now, he never grabbed anybody. But there were big displays of heated arguments and anger. My brothers and I would hide behind chairs or walls to escape the agonizing embarrassment. Lastly that is apparent in this text is my dad’s humor. His memory, threaded with joy and pain, is finished with a line of humor. I know that my younger brother and I do this often. We sprinkle humor in a story because we take a delight in being silly and enjoy other peoples’ laughter.
As I navigate my continuous role of being a mother, I desperately want to be the person who changed from learning from the past. I do not want the past to keep dictating my future or my children’s future. I want to grow and let life in and not be stuck on something that brings me pain. I know it’s not easy to move away from what is familiar. But when I look at the two beautiful little faces that I have helped create, they deserve a mother who works on herself and who strives to have her shit together. And for both of my parents, especially my dad, I hope they can give their inner child a pep talk and tell them that they are worth everything this world has to offer and more. And that their daughter is not only grateful for them but loves them with every fiber of her being.
