A Morning Mayhem Moment
A Morning Mayhem Moment
The rough ride of being human
Hey there, it’s a back-to-school edition of Living the In-Between Times! I’m serving up this reflection from a morning last spring as a gift for all of you heading into your own Morning Mayhem Moments this fall… Solidarity, people! ✊🏼
They say it isn’t a good idea to live vicariously through your kid.
But isn’t parenting just a second chance to mend the wounds still festering from childhood? Another chance (or 200!) to confront and heal what we haven’t yet figured out how?
Take this morning with my daughter, the ten year-old Queen of Goof & Giggles. She’s whip smart glass of spit and vinegar, who on most days wields an Emotional IQ of close to 200. When she’s in her element, she’s a one-woman dance party with a thousand-watt, disco-ball bulb.
She’s also fully capable of bringing a category 5 tornado of rage. And on this particular Tuesday in April, at 7:44 AM, she’s pissed.
School (which is just around the corner) starts at 8:00 am and her teeth aren’t brushed, her backpack’s not packed, her feet are bare, and she’s kicking one sneaker clear across the room.
“I hate these shoes! You said you would buy me new ones!”
I did, indeed tell her this.
I’d also told her the evening before that if she wasn’t ready to head out the door at 7:50, she’d have to walk herself to school instead of getting a ride with me, which is the real reason she’s kicking her shoes. Time is ticking, the math is working against her, and she knows she’s losing her chance for a ride.
She hurls accusations, a wild animal flailing at a cage’s bars as the latch clicks closed. “You know I hate these shoes! Why don’t you get me new shoes?! These ones are dirty! They hurt my feet!”
The tears are bubbling up and she’s reached peak shriek (which with her vocal cords is really something to behold). “You’re SO MEAN! And I know you’re NEVER going to take me to school!!!”
Dear reader, this is the point when I suck in my breath and, boy, do I consider my choices.
On the one hand, please let the record show that I. DON’T. LIKE. HER. ATTITUDE. It’s incredibly disrespectful. I consider mounting my high horse to deliver a sliver of perspective: “My shoes are dirty and the laces are annoying to untie” isn’t a Defcon 4 crisis, Missy. The crack you’re slipping through right now is one of your own making. You can just as easily decide there IS no crack. That this isn’t a problem. Your shoes are fine. You’re not going to be late to school, you just won’t get a ride today. You’ll get lots and lots of chances to get a 3-minute ride to school every other day other day this school year! Can we quit the hysterics and put on the damn shoes already?!
Watching her fume, I know I’m 100% right.
Aand I know this speech would land about as gracefully as a lead balloon
She rails on, tears flowing, and I turn to consider the truth I hold in my other hand: a human I love deeply is in distress. Beneath a thin veneer of outrage, she is telling herself a painful story. That she’s a failure because she didn’t meet the expectation today. Or worse—that she’s worthless.
I know this story so intimately that the recognition of it shocks me out of the “Acting This Way Isn’t a Way to Get Anything Good” PowerPoint presentation I’d been mentally preparing, and hurls me into something else entirely.
My kid is holding a hot pink sneaker and yelling at me, but all I hear are the accusations I’ve lobbed at myself so many times over the years. Time waster! Inept! Procrastinator! Failure!
This story of failure and worthlessness has her by the throat now. There’s no lecture long enough or right enough to tunnel her out of this hole of shame she’s in.
So I leave all of her accusations on the floor where she’s hurled them and go to the basket where we keep the socks. I grab a pair and gently put them in her hand without speaking. She sits and puts them on, then pulls on the shoes I silently hand her. I ask her if she wants a hug and she nods. I press her wet, curly head to my chest.
I feel my own heart soften, heeding compassion’s quiet call.
Come, all you who are terrified you’ll never be enough.
Come, all you who fume about the traffic, the emails, the tight shoes with annoying laces, the empty refrigerator, the burnt toast, the treadmill to-do list to nowhere.
Come and press your wet, curly head right here.
You can set your painful story down and rest right in this moment.
It’s all going to be more than okay.
