Going from a full time career to a stay-at-home mom has been really hard for me. While many aspects of my career have helped with parenting, I feel like I am continually thrown curve balls, negotiating, and being tested to my limits. For a new stay-at-home mom like me, it is exhausting and overwhelming. No powerpoint presentation in the world can save some of the petty arguments I’ve found myself in. Nor can it fix them once gone too far.
It was another evening at home after school. My son and I had a disagreement turned bad over something silly. Dinner.
Why is it always at dinner?
I don’t know if it was the fact we’d been together for weeks without much of a break, or just that we were both in a foul mood. I don’t remember now because it happened so fast.
One minute I was cleaning up from dinner, the next we were shouting at each other over his dislike for dinner, despite licking his plate clean. It’d be one thing if he hadn’t cleaned his plate, but he ate all of it, which makes what I did even worse. All I could wonder was, “Why is he arguing with me? I’m going to win this. I’m not in the mood.”
I knew deep down that I should let it go, but I was in a place that just couldn’t. All my leadership skill training went out the window over chicken nuggets. It was absolutely ridiculous that I let myself get worked up to the point of actually verbalizing something incredibly rude.
“You have problems.”
And then I felt awful. Really awful.
I realized immediately that I crossed a line. Stay-at-home mom or not, I failed him. The words escaped my lips without the slightest filter – no softening of a message or a respectful way to end the banter. I disappointed him and myself.
My son fled from the kitchen in tears with his head in his hands. I knew I had seriously hurt his feelings.
I took a deep breath and waited a few minutes to calm down. I knew the best thing was to wait it out in case I couldn’t control my emotions again. I didn’t want to let him down a second time.
I had to apologize. I didn’t want him to think for one second that I really thought he had problems. Who knows how he’d interpret that! Talk about feeling like a bad mother.
I needed him to know that I didn’t mean it, loved him and that I was sorry. I didn’t want him to think for a second that I meant what I said and certainly didn’t intend to make him feel so bad. While I need him to know that there are consequences to arguing with me or “crying wolf”, it was more important to me to repair our relationship so he would forgive me for how I made him feel.
I went to his bedroom after giving us both a few minutes to calm down and process what had happened. I wanted nothing more from the discussion other than it be a forgiving, loving one.
I told him, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. Can you forgive me?”
He cried, we chatted briefly, hugged and made up. I chose to save the “but” and “consequences” conversation for another time which we had a few days later. And you know what? He was the one who initiated it and apologized to me. He apologized for being naughty. If I had only bit my tongue that Wednesday night and let him realize that on his own terms, none of this would have happened.
I can’t say that we don’t argue anymore, but I learned a valuable lesson that day. Sometimes you pick the wrong battles, or worse, you can’t take back how you made someone feel. It could be that you’re tired, struggling through the career to stay-at-home mom transition, or just simply reached the point of answering the same 8 year old question the 100th time.
If you screw up, because you know it can happen, saying sorry can be a humbling and easy yet powerful relationship builder.
Children will forgive you if you take responsibility and apologize for how you made them feel. Don’t be afraid to reverse roles and be the one to say it, even if it does feel strange being on the other side of what you’re used to. I did and it made both my son and I feel a thousand times better. No powerpoint presentation would have ever fixed that.