Yes. This is a Facebook post I am daring to write with a further explanation in this blog. The thing is, we are so used to living in the perfect iCloud, that it’s good to come down from the digital heaven to the real planet earth, where things are messy, where families are not picture perfect, where chaos is happening, and yes, where children curse. So I figured, maybe I can extract something positive form the experience.
It happened this morning. It was an unusual one, we were not late, kids had breakfast, and everything was going great. As a mom you tend to appreciate more this kind of mornings where it looks like everybody is in sync and you don’t have to scream or rush (a lot). We came to the car and my daughter’s door got jammed. And there it was. The clear sound of the F word. She had said it before once, but in that time she was just repeating a sound. This time she had the intention, and the word had a meaning. So it was a completely different experience. —Calm down— I said to myself.
I went to see what was going on, opened her door and ask her in the calmest way possible:
—What did you just said?
She looked at me knowing that she had said something that was upsetting me. I could even saw tears forming in her little blue eyes.
—A bad word mami. —She answered.
—And do you know what it means?
—When you can’t do something and then you get angry?
It is what it is, I though. I was not going to ask her how she learned the word, I know how it happened and it really doesn’t matter. Kids are a mirror. They learn from us in our best and in our worst, and we have to remember this all the time. This is when Disney Movies come in handy (I knew those movies had to have some use after all!) I talked to her about anger (yes, you guessed, Inside Out) and how we can handle frustration in different ways. As I was talking to her I wonder if I was really talking to myself. As adults we tend to give advise, we feel wiser and we have that responsibility. But what really happens is that kids are the teachers, and suddenly we realize that we are re-learning to live thanks to them. I was telling her that she needed to breath next time she feels that anger is overcoming her; that sometimes we don’t get what we want, or things get broken, or bad things happen around us but everything, absolutely everything has a solution. I told her that yes, that word is a way we use to express frustration but we really don’t need to use it. (Fuck it, we really need to use sometimes but I had to tell her that) I told her that when we get frustrated we need to fight the negativity and this starts with the words we use.
—I love you mami, I wont say it again. I promise. Do you promise?
—I’ll try mi amor. —I said.
After I dropped her at school I was thinking that those promises you make to your kids have to be the ones you need to try to keep the most. For me to not say that word in front of her again (because who am I kidding, I had said it millions of times) then I have to remember to breath, every time the coffee spills in those mornings when we are late, or when kids seem to have that hurricane energy that destroys the house that you just cleaned up, or when you are in traffic desperate to get somewhere, or when things just simply go wrong. Those are simple things. Those things don’t worth our frustration. Frustration is what I feel knowing what is going on in the world right now and not having a clue on what to do to help to change it. Well… let’s start from us teaching our children about love and compassion. Let’s teach them to don’t rush into life, to take it easy. Let’s give them the ability to be happy, not expecting them to be perfect, but let them be, really guiding them so they can learn to love themselves, hence they will learn to love and respect others. And us parents let’s stop competing for who is the best and happiest parent, or who has the smartest, brightest, most talented and perfect kid in the circle of friends.
When we learn to accept we are not perfect, we are going to judge lot less. Of course we will screw up sometimes, but if we try, and if we stop pretending that we live perfect lives and be more real, more present, maybe there is a chance that our kids will fix this mess we have created. We have to try. Who’s with me?
