Confessions from a Mama of Many
I was gritty with frustration last night. None of my punks were listening to my directions to stop fighting and please clean up messes. My house looked as if a daycare, an elementary school, a grocery store (I had just gotten home from errands), and a laundromat had a head-on collision. There were no survivors.
Dinner wasn’t ready.
I was getting snarky attitudes from the older kids and whining tears from the littles while my middle kids ignored house rules and raced each other up and down the halls shrieking.
The burning anger was rising. The exasperation in me was roaring toward all-out irrational irritation and picking up sarcasm and sudden outbursts of yelling along the way.
Here’s a relatively frequent experience:
When the throbbing starts in my temples and my jaw starts aching a bit from the clenching, it’s a good sign that I’m a leetle angry and close to my frustration limit.
Too much more and the harsh words come much too quickly, the cupboard doors start getting shut a bit too hard, and the onions get chopped as if I were a teppanyaki chef with a personal vendetta against vegetables.
Then the kids start looking up at me with slightly wounded, pouty expressions, even as the whining ratchets up a notch and the bickering takes an uptick.
“When mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” (Who decided that brilliant axiom, anyway?) It doesn’t really seem fair that the household generally seems to find me the emotional thermostat, following my stress levels, hovering equally near to my cheery high moments or my discouraged lows.
And yet this is the case. We mamas wield a lot of power as we captain our own little crews, trying to avoid the shoals while being rocked by waves and splattered with storms. It’s hard to maintain perspective that my children are learning how to navigate life based on my example, even as I sometimes just try to survive the day.
This is a lot of influence to hold! And often it feels like something far beyond my capacity and understanding. And yet: Here at home with my children is the place where I have the opportunity to be the leader God made me.
I can exert my choice to impact my family environment in a way that will benefit everyone, or I can decide to follow my acidic angry mental churnings and end up with figurative heartburn. (And sometimes literal heartburn too, now that I think about it.)
So. Since parenting is a calling which God has entrusted to me, it helps when I stop, take that deep breath, and quickly ask Him to come in and join me in the moments of deep frustration, raw aggravation, and exhausted irritation.
I usually think/pray a line from an old song, “Holy Spirit, thou art welcome in this place,” and just the acknowledgement that I need something – no, Some ONE – greater and more able than myself brings a pause to the anger. It’s not that I need the old-fashioned English, it’s that I’m usually so desperate that I’m kicking into autopilot and often the old songs I heard as a child are the ones that rise first.
I can choose to invite Him to come into this moment, this home, this heart, where I feel so tired, so weak, so overcome with frustration and overwhelm and stress.
And He does. Every single time. Like a cool breeze on a hot, breathless day, I sense His peaceful presence, and my heart unwrinkles a bit. (He’s so kind to tired, frazzled mamas.)
My mouth, open before with sharp words, closes. My breathing (and heart rate) slow. I usually take a deep breath, then if I need it, a drink of water (it helps! Swallowing stimulates the vagus nerve and that aids relaxation and stress relief – fun fact).
Then the conviction kicks in and I feel ashamed of myself and my lack of kindness. So then the prayer of Brother Lawrence comes to mind: “How can I but fail unless You enable me to stand?”
Because my first way back from the other side of that chasm of burning anger and exasperation is firstly to make it right with the One I’ve truly wounded with my sin: God.
Asking His forgiveness is easy. Accepting it is humbling, because it means that once again I’ve proven my inability to cope well on my own. Pride gets another zinger and that’s never an enjoyable feeling. (Especially when I get to feel that zinger a lot. Parenting keeps me humble.)
Calling my kids (or maybe just the ones I’ve been angry and impatient or irritated towards, so… that often means almost all of them…) to me, I wait till they’re all quiet(ish) and listening, looking at me.
Then I apologize for my angry reactions and the things I did and said that were wrong. I ask them to forgive me.
During last night’s situation, even before I could finish my sentence including the words, “I’m so sorry for being angry,” one child was up and gently head-butting me for a loving hug and another was interrupting me with their own remorseful apology. All of them said they forgave me. All of them meant it.
The ones who had done things I had been frustrated at (and suddenly much of it seemed petty and just childish, not worth the amount of angst I had poured into my reaction) apologized sincerely, simply, sweetly.
The tension in the air deflated like a leaky balloon, and a soft tenderness filled the space between my children and me. I was again startled and almost speechless at the speed and wholehearted grace my children give me with no hesitation when I express regret or sorrow over the things I have done wrong.
The relief on their faces that I had initiated in guiding us all back to place of peace and connection again was so clear.
The feeling of reparation and restoration was wonderful.
Choosing the humility and softness of a genuine apology always makes a stunningly swift and stable bridge over what initially appeared a deep and burning gorge between us – as long as I don’t put off the reconnection from a sense of pride. I choose to maintain short accounts, and that builds their trust in me.
I can’t change them or make them sorry for their own part of the situation, but I can definitely choose to make it right on my part. And I often find that when I am vulnerable and courageous to admit my faults, they tend to reciprocate because they see I am no longer setting myself as their opponent.
My vulnerability creates a place of safety for them.
And by showing them my willingness to admit fault (it’s not like they are shocked that I’m not perfect) and my humility to ask their forgiveness, I am showing them the beauty and peace that lies in a life lived with short accounts. I am showing the courage and strength it needs to be the one making that first step back together. And by my quickness to accept and forgive their mistakes and wrongs, I am showing them the loving grace our God gives when we tell Him we’re sorry and return to make it right.
By God’s grace, they will grow to be quick bridge-builders themselves in the relationships they have later. Because that’s what this world needs more of.
May He fill you and me with the ongoing courage and humility to make peace with our children, remembering that as His children He makes peace with us.
(Do you find it difficult to apologize to your children?)