Mean Words From A Parent.

[rightkindofme]

Not my own parent, me. My daughter is four and has been going through a string of hair cutting incidents. Keeping her from cutting her hair would require putting everything sharp in a box and locking it up. I don't want to have a house full of pad locks keeping my kids out of things.

I was a hair cutter. I still cut my own hair. My mom hated me for doing so. Yesterday when my daughter got weird chunks of her hair down to about 1/2" long I said, "Great. We are going to be in a wedding in two weeks and you have a stupid haircut. Good job. You will be ugly in the pictures forever."

That is pretty much verbatim what my mother told me. I apologized within minutes of it coming out of my mouth. I know that isn't appropriate.

I am having a very hard time not saying the things that were said to me. I don't hit my kids. Overall we have a really good relationship. Sometimes she does things that are just like *me* and I freak out and say what my mother said to me. Every time it happens I feel ashamed of myself. I apologize. I point out specifically what was not ok about what I said. I don't repeat the bad things.

My kid has an ego the size of Alaska. She is happy and friendly and well adjusted and she is in love with the world. The fact that occasionally I say less than perfect things hasn't wrecked her world. I have only slipped and said something rude a few times. But I'm afraid it will get more frequent as they get older and push more boundaries.

I hate that any time I say something inappropriate my primary response is to want to kill myself. I feel like a melodramatic annoying whiner. I've been suicidal and I've done a lot of self-mutilating for more than twenty years. I am not "just" over reacting to parenting stuff. This is my reaction pattern.

I say something mean then I want to die so that I stop putting my poison into the air. I want to stop contaminating the good people I stand near. I am not worthy of their companionship.

I am in therapy. I write about this cycle on my blog. I'm not invisible. I'm not hiding this thought process. I'm as transparent as I can be. I have been writing about these cycles long enough that my friends don't freak out, they just kind of keep up with me. I don't understand why.

Today I feel like I want to cancel every social engagement over the next month and hide under a table because I am a bad person and if I stand near anyone I will be mean. Because I can't help it--I'm just mean and nasty. Everything in my head is mean and nasty.

I don't think that is "really" true. I'm told that I'm actually a very positive and uplifting person. I feel like a worthless piece of shit.

 

[The Albatross]

During times of frustration it is too easy for me to revert back to the old tapes. I still get intensely upset when I open my mouth and my father's voice comes out. You caught it, your rectified it, you took the right actions. I needed to learn some frustration tolerance. It has gotten a bit better.

 

[Venusian]

I know this may sound simplistic and it is hard to do in the moment of that initial reaction, take a breath and give your self a moment to get past that and then speak. It is harder than it seems and I have had to apologize to my children several times for over reacting, but it can be done. Practise before you need it and it will become second nature.

You were taught over many years how to react to children because of the way your mother reacted to you, it can take some time to retrain how you react to your children. You have already begun to do this because you do know it is wrong and by recognizing that and telling her why it is wrong you are teaching your daughter a better way and starting to break that cycle. That is amazing. You should be applauded for that acheivment because so many just continue the abusive cycle into the next generation because they don't recognize that it is wrong or think it is too late to change. Your daughter is young and as she gets older you are also getting wiser and that gives you time to learn better coping skills when she start pushing boundaries more and more.

 

[rightkindofme]

I appreciate you both being nice so much. Today I don't feel very good about myself.

 

[Loveneverfails]

My T told me something that at the time didn't feel very helpful, but it gave me some perspective later on. That in some way we all 'screw up our kids'. Where he's coming from is that no parent, even one in perfect circumstances, is actually perfect. I think it's absolutely wonderful that you stop, apologize and point out what was wrong. Your child will grow up knowing people aren't perfect, that it's okay to make mistakes and that she doesn't have to be afraid because her parents will always talk to her, and make what wrongs occur, right. That's how you build a strong relationship with your significant other, by talking and growing and acknowledging your wrongs. It's incredibly healthy to do that with your own children- though a lot of parents with better backgrounds than ours still are in denial about it, afraid to appear anything but perfect in front of their children even into adulthood.

I'm so sorry the bad moments effect you the way they do, you are handling them in the best way you can, by fixing it for your little girl. Parenting is so hard and we often have nothing to go on but the example of our own parents. I catch myself doing the same thing sometimes, repeating something or thinking something my mother once said to me. It never fails to make me cringe. But I am not my mother and I will never be my mother. You will never be yours. And the simplest reason why is that you recognize and fix your mistakes. In my eyes that is a true sign of love.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Ok so this is off point, but I think you need to go hat shopping. They've got a million and one cute hats for kids, and your daughter will look absolutely adorable in pictures. Lemons to lemonade?

Kids are resilient. I'm not saying that your words can't hurt because they can. (We all know that.) But if you apologize and work on this issue, your daughter WILL notice.

It wasn't so much the bad things that happened to me as a kid. It was the brushing under the rug, ignoring if the issue and failure to apologize or improve that made everything so bad.

We're not perfect but I know we all feel the need to be. You are not your mother because of what you say. What sets you apart is how you remedy the situation afterwards.

 

[nimkekaa]

I apologized within minutes of it coming out of my mouth. I know that isn't appropriate.

I think you taught your daughter a beautiful lesson right here. Everyone makes mistakes and you used one of yours to show her how to handle it. Not everyone is big enough to make things right after they mess up.

I use to struggle with my parenting mistakes big time also. A friend of mine once told me this.... If you were perfect all the time then your children would not have any positive role modelling on how to handle making mistakes. Also if you hide all your mistakes from your children then they will think that perfection is possible and striving for perfection is not a nice way to live.

We are all human and make mistakes. It's what we do and learn from them that count.

 

[rightkindofme]

My therapist told me that her most messed up clients are the ones who had parents who never yelled. They just can't function as adults.

 

[nursenurse]

I'm speaking as a supporter and as a Mom, and you aren't any different from the rest of us who have struggled through parenthood. I think you are more sensitive because of your childhood issues. I can tell you where you are ahead of the game. I'll bet for the most part you have raised your child differently, and you realize when you have said something wrong. And you correct it right away.

It's always a work in progress, isn't it? With this PTSD hanging, it seems to progress more slowly. You have retrospect and introspect, two highly desired qualities that not everyone has. We are all good on retrospect. Introspect is hard. I think your daughter is lucky. And she is going to give you grief, and you will over react at times. Name me one kid who hasn't stirred the pot, and one parent who hasn't boiled over. Beyond Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you won't be filling a page.

Be kind to yourself. You sound like a normal, loving Mom to me.

 

[Pencil]

All kids (or only girls?) cut their own hair - and so badly that mothers are ashamed to be seen with them in public. That's par for the course. All mothers lose it. That's also par for the course.

I have at times been verbally abusive to my daughter. There's no need to tell me that there is no excuse - I know all of that. The reality is, however, that nobody is a perfect parent, we all make mistakes, and I think the ones that don't feel like CRAP most of the time and beat themselves up for being awful are the really awful ones.

 

[rightkindofme]

This is probably the sixth or so time she has done it. I yelled because we are going to be in a wedding in two weeks so there will be a bunch of formal pictures that someone else cares about. I care too much about other people being happy.

Mostly I figure it is her body and she can do what she wants with it. That is a lot of why I feel so ashamed. I believe it is her body and I shouldn't shame her about it.

If I manage nothing else I do not want to be the evil self hating inner voice for my kids. :(

 

[Pencil]

I know, and I have done the same, and I will probably remember those times until the day I die, literally. My daughter is now 7, and she hacked her hair in class (Grade 1) last year for the last time (I hope!). It really seems like a girl thing. I freaked the one time she cut her beautiful, thick hair into a bloody mullet. And I also flipped. But others made a very good point - you screwed up, what matters is how you deal with it from now on, and I realize now that one should have a good damage control strategy in place. SoL said something about not sweeping things under the carpet. I tend to bring issues like that up afterwards, to give mine the opportunity to process how she felt about it, and express it.

I really think we can't totally prevent these really damaging things from happening - but the processing is crucial, and THAT we CAN get right. I'm also working on it, and I have to admit that I'm relieved that I'm not the only one feeling like a total bitch at times. :(