Sometimes I get soooooo depressed, and I wonder, was I that bad of a parent? How can all this shit have happened to me? A friend shared, “God only gives you what you can handle.” Really? Am I handling all this crap? Yes, I’ve accepted that my son is finally at peace up in heaven, but why can’t I have a relationship with my daughter? We used to be so close. After I blow my nose and sniffle away a few more tears, I pull myself together and remember some of the funny times we had as a family.
I used to have a horrible temper so when Alan did or said something wrong, I’d become furious with him. And, of course, as was typical in those days, a string of nonsensical obscenities would embellish the tense air. My anger used to be horrendous. In a calm voice, he would attempt to settle me down, trying to explain the situation without saying one negative comment. I don’t know how he handled my rage. His favorite phrase, “You do know you have a sailor’s mouth.”
“No, I have my dad’s Air Force mouth,” I replied, sounding as if I was proud of it.
Now that I was pregnant with our first, Alan reminded me one evening over homemade enchiladas, “You better watch the way you talk, or our child’s going to learn that military vocabulary.” I chuckled knowing full well that he was right. Alan rarely cussed. Somehow years later, he cusses every once in a while because he learned that behavior from me.
It was Winter Break, A.K.A. Christmas vacation, so I rushed home after school and Alan, and I packed the car quickly. We were on our way to Arizona to spend Christmas with my family. Alan drove too fast as usual, and Kyle happily sat in his car seat in the back seat humming to himself.
“So. Moe. Doe. Low. Go.” Our three year old said in a steady rhythm.
Alan glanced over at me and smiled. “He’s learned how to rhyme.”
“Yup, we have a smart kid. I guess he learned that from…” I was interrupted. The rhymes changed.
“Duck. Luck. Guck. Suck. “Alan and I glanced at each other worried. “Fuck.”
“What do we do?” Alan asked.
I wedged an old map in the window, blocking the late afternoon sun. “Ignore it because if we make a big deal out of it, he’ll repeat it again just to get attention. How about if we give him another word?”
Alan shifted in the car seat and shook his head, “I don’t know.”
I turned around to look at our tow-headed three-year-old. “Kyle, can you rhyme with ‘me’?” Instantly, Kyle bought into the game for a whole 2 minutes until he became bored, soon drifting off to sleep.
Spending time with our family in Arizona is extremely special for us, especially during the Christmas season. Luckily, Kyle decided not to show off his new rhyming game. After four days we drove home and decided to drop off at Vons Grocery Store because our refrigerator was bare. We stood in line at the checkout unloading our groceries from either side of the cart while Kyle sat patiently in the kid seat. I grabbed the box of Raisin Bran and the box of Triscuit Crackers when I hear, “You fucking asshole.”
Alan and my head boinged up like two Pointers, our eyes must have looked as if we had witnessed a murder. “What do we do?” Alan asked.
“I don’t know.” I glanced at the line behind us, and everyone had faced the other way so we wouldn’t see them laughing their heads off. Kyle was sure to do this again because he could see that everyone was laughing. I knew I had to do something so I slapped him lightly on the cheek.
He cried out, “That hurts,” but he didn’t cry. I think he would have but he knew he had made people laugh and that seemed to satisfy him.
“We don’t say things like that.” I scolded.
“But you do,” Kyle quipped back.
Alan gave me, ‘I told you so look,’ and we finished paying for our groceries. Once we were in the car, I explained to Kyle that when I lose my temper, I do cuss sometimes, but I’m not supposed to say those bad words either. I asked if he could catch me when I say them and I would help him. He nodded his head.
Kyle still would cuss horribly when he was frustrated. And even though I was still guilty about losing it with my husband and cussing instead of explaining how I felt, I had become better. Honest. But obviously, not good enough.
Five years later I was readying for church when our two-year-old curly-headed daughter, Nicole, walked into our walk-in closet while I was choosing a pair of shoes. Alan pulled his black dress jacket off the hanger and walked out. Nicole held her fluffy beige bear up to me as if she wanted me to take it and said, “Look at the haiya on this fukin’ beya.” You have no idea how hard it was for me to not burst out laughing. Her high little voice and her problem with her ‘r’s made her sentence sound even more precious.
“Nicole, you don’t say words like that.” She looked up at me innocently as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. I gave her a hug. “I love you, but no bad words,” I said while wagging my finger on the last three words of my sentence. She smiled like a little angel and walked off hugging her bear.
Alan yelled from the bedroom, “What happened?” I told him. “She learned that from you and Kyle.”
I walked out of the closet. “Alan, I’ve gotten a lot better.”
He placed his arms around my waist, “I love you, but you still cuss too much.” His bristly mustache tickled the top of my forehead.
“I’ll try harder, and I’ll talk to Kyle.” He kissed me, and we finished helping the kids get ready for church. Later, I spoke to Kyle about the responsibilities of being a big brother and that he had to especially be careful with what he said around his sister because she was learning some bad words. He promised that he would really try, but that it would be hard because when he got mad he didn’t know what to say.
An episode from a “Bill Cosby Show” appeared in my mind’s eye. Cosby played a basketball coach, and his team was about to get disqualified because of all the cursing while competing against other high schools. The coach taught the students to say, ‘fudgesicle’ or ‘ham hocks ’instead of cuss words. I shared with Kyle some of the words and the lesson from the sitcom. He chuckled and agreed to try and create his own words. We had fun trying to come up with a creative word when we would get mad. I wished I would have written some of them down. He rarely cussed at all and I became much better about not cursing.
I think a better tool would have been to ask Kyle to explain how he felt physically and emotionally when he became angry and ask him what made him upset. If your child is young, ask him if his stomach is tight, or if he feels like crying or hitting something. My therapist taught me when I start becoming upset to count odds or evens, or count backward (a young child could just count) or name favorite colors. Another exercise is a karate chop the tissue between the thumb and pointing finger. This switches your reaction/depression from the right side of the brain, the reptilian side, the survival side to the left, which is our logical side. These exercises help the person to get out of their head and back to feeling calm.
Everyone in the family needs to learn to express themselves and all need to honor their feelings. Sometimes the other person doesn’t even know that they said something hurtful. This opens up for an apology and diffuses future reactions. Also, when we express our feeling, things don’t build up, and then someone blows up or shuts down.
Our daughter held onto her feelings and began to have Fibromyalgia, a debilitating problem where pain moves around the body and tiredness takes over. I believe this occurred because Kyle took so much energy from us and because Alan would react. Also, in all honesty, we were not very good at teaching our children to express their feelings, and when I tried, Nicole had already had shut down. I'm sure also when she was young she unconsciously didn’t want to bother us with her needs and feelings.
Learning to express feelings is a lesson you will use your whole life. Your family and your loved ones will stay mentally and physically healthy. Get online and print up a FEELING Chart so everyone will have a vocabulary to use.
The ‘wikihow’ site is an excellent place with pictures you can show your children and read about how to handle anger. Also, it’s a useful place for adults to remind ourselves what we should do when we get mad. It’s too easy to react with yelling, cussing or hitting your child or the walls which were the norm for my father.
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