Dear Sugar,
I am a mother of two beautiful little girls, ages four and two. They are the light of my life, and I love them more than words can express. I didn’t think I wanted to be a mother and often said I had no affinity with children. But my God, when my first was born, it was like a 360 spin out. I didn’t know what hit me. I fell in love and was under her spell instantly. I bonded quickly with both girls and would call myself an attachment parent. The three of us are very close and we’re a very affectionate family.
I’m aware of the importance of respecting my daughters’ feelings and teaching them about expressing their feelings not suppressing them. But lately I have been losing control with my temper, allowing this demonic THING to come out of me during times of stress. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not flying off the handle over trivial things like not finishing dinner or being rowdy at the supermarket. It’s more of a culmination where I’m tolerating one thing after another and then I explode.
I should also explain that my husband, who is an adoring father and husband, works long and unpredictable hours. This kills him because he misses being with us, but it’s just the way it is. He is what I call a pure heart. He is the man who saved me, because before I met him I was a compulsive negative thinker. He is just pure “good” in the way that you don’t see these days. He’s so gentle and fun and loving with our girls and I’m so grateful for that, but he works long hours, so I’m often a single mom and I feel stretched thin. Most days are good, but when I lose it, it’s like gangbusters.
The thing that frightens me, Sugar, is that I come from a very volatile family background. Not in the sense that my parents were raging alcoholics or freakishly abusive. They unfairly screamed their heads off and intimidated us and hit us a lot. We weren’t allowed to make our own choices and were made to feel very powerless. My mother especially would unleash on my siblings and me, and often it was like negotiating through landmines. You just didn’t know when she’d blow. She would say out loud that she wanted to run away, and on those nights I wouldn’t sleep until she was in bed. I truly did think she was packing her bags. She had major issues that I’ve learned of recently. She comes from a dysfunctional background and other circumstances that will take too long to explain here. I think this caused her to go off on hour-long soliloquies about how her life sucked and her kids sucked, too.
Okay, so that’s the backstory in a nutshell. I’m a woman with low self-esteem who just gritted her teeth through university, got a pretty good job, married a great guy, have a beautiful family but now I’m scaring myself because of my temper. I’m doing things that I know are not acceptable. Tonight I grabbed my older girl out of her car seat and threw her onto our front yard. She was lying there in shock and started to cry. The prelude to this was a screaming adult tantrum during the drive home. It’s almost like I can’t come down until I’ve had my hit of rage.
I feel like I totally suck and don’t deserve to be their mother because I know this is wrong but I can’t stop. Today I asked my doctor for a referral to a therapist so I can start talking through these deeper issues. I’m just scared that I’ll never be able to change, and that this temper and need to explode is hardwired in me.
Yours,
Helpless Mom
Dear Helpless Mom,
I don’t think you’re helpless. I think you’re a good mom who has on occasion been brought to the edge of her capacities for tolerance and patience and kindness and who needs to learn how to manage her anger and her stress. You’re entirely capable of doing that, sweet pea. The part of your letter in which you state that you believe you may “never be able to change” concerns me more than the part of your letter in which you describe flinging your child onto the lawn in a rage. Given your situation as the primary caregiver of two very young children with little practical support from a partner, it comes as no surprise that you’ve lost it with your beloved kids from time to time. I have, for short stretches, parented my own two young children in circumstances very much like those you describe and it is without question the most exhausting and maddening work I’ve ever done.
I’ve also behaved in ways toward my children that I regret. Find me a mother who hasn’t.
I don’t say this to let you off the hook, but rather—paradoxically—to place responsibility for change squarely on your shoulders. Parenting is serious business. It brings out the best and the worst in us. It demands that we confront our brightest and darkest selves. Your dear daughters have given you the opportunity to see yourself in full: you are the woman who has the ability to love more deeply than she ever thought possible and also the woman who has intermittent “screaming adult tantrums” directed at two people under the age of five.
The best thing you can do for your girls is to forgive yourself for what has passed, accept that your rages helped you to understand you have work to do in order to be the mother your children deserve, and then draw on every resource you can—both internal and external—to become her.
Your husband’s job is demanding, but surely he’s around often enough that he can give you regular breaks from the family fray. Does he? Do you take them? I know how hard it can be to pull yourself away, especially when you’re hungry for the rare we’re-all-together-for-once! family time, but I encourage you to find space for yourself too, even if you have to struggle to carve it out. It’s amazing what an hour alone can restore, what rages a walk can quell. There are also other venues of support. A babysitting/playdate exchange with other parents; sending your children to a preschool a few mornings or afternoons a week, even if you don’t have a “job” that demands you do so; a membership at a gym that provides childcare while you work out or sit in the sauna paging through a magazine—these are all things that helped me through the thick of it, when very my days were vast seas of young children with no grown humans around to help.
The harder work is of course what you must do on the inside, the healing that needs to happen in regard to your own parents. I’m glad you’re seeking counseling. I hope you’ll enter into that process with a sense of strength rather than despair, because it is your strength and love that shines through your letter to me most of all. You have already come so far, sweet pea. That you have parented your daughters differently than the damaged way you were parented is perhaps the most meaningful achievement of your life, but there is more beyond the land of I did better than them. I have every belief that you’ll find it; that you’ll learn how to let your anger be only what it is and nothing more—a storm that passes harmlessly through you and peters out into the softest rain before it fades to sun.
I once gave my heart to ten angry boys. I thought of them so much as I pondered your letter, because even though they seemingly have nothing to do with you or me or any of the basically good moms you and I know, my experience with them has informed my life in so many ways, and specifically my understanding of my obligations as a parent.
I worked with the angry boys during the same time that I worked with the girls that I wrote about in my column “How You Get Unstuck.” My real work wasn’t with these boys—I was officially employed to serve the girls—but because I had an office in the middle school and because I had the job title of youth advocate and because any program whose mission is to serve children living in poverty is invariably forced to scrounge for whatever it can get for free, I was enlisted to participate in an experiment of sorts.
The experiment was this: convince the parents of these boys—who’d all done something bad enough that they’d been pulled out of regular classes and put into a special anger management class—to come to the school to have dinner with their children as a family every Tuesday evening for ten weeks. The program would provide the food and the angry boys would serve it up. Each family would sit at its own table, separate from the others, in order to encourage family unity. After dinner, each angry boy would draw a card from a bowl and read what it said out loud to his family—it might be my happiest memory or my dreams for the future—and the families were meant to discuss this thing for fifteen minutes. After the discussions, the families would split up. The parents of the angry boys would go into a room where they’d meet with a team of social workers, group-therapy style, to discuss parenting challenges and joys; the youngest siblings of the angry boys would go into another room with a couple of interns, who were assigned to babysit; and the angry boys and their older and often even more angry siblings would go into a room with me. The youth advocate.
Hah.
The idea was that I’d lead the kids in games that would help them learn how to work cooperatively with each other without anyone trying to throttle anyone else. The first week was a disaster. One of the angry boys threatened someone’s brother with a chair. Another punched someone very hard in the head when we played “duck, duck, gray duck.” Bingo evolved into a melee. The hour felt like four.
I was actually trembling by the time we rejoined the parents and younger siblings in the school cafeteria, the rest of the building eerily dark and hushed around us. Once assembled, we stood in a wide circle—the ten angry boys and their families, four social workers, two interns, and me. It was time for our closing ritual, one of the social workers explained in a booming voice. We’d do this every week for the next nine, she said. First, we’d sing a song. Next, we’d do a thing called “rain.”
I didn’t know what “rain” was, but I didn’t have time to inquire. I only followed along like the rest of the group, singing the song it seemed the social workers had made-up themselves for this very occasion, catching the reluctant eyes of the parents of the angry boys as we all pushed our way haltingly through the inanely cheerful words. There were a few men in the room—one real dad and a smattering of boyfriends—but most of the parents were women about my age—late twenties—though they didn’t look like me or dress like me or seem like me in any way. They seemed entirely like the moms of the angry boys. Like they lived on the extremes. Either plainly haggard or overly dolled up. Either very fat or very thin. Either recently coked up or soon to be nodding off.
I felt like a fraud among them. How was I going to convince their sons not to threaten one another with chairs?
When at last it was time to do “rain,” the social worker lead us through it and I followed along again as the whole group of us collectively reenacted a storm with our bodies. We began by standing silently with our arms rounded into suns above us, then we rubbed our hands together to create the softest hiss, then we snapped our fingers to simulate the pitter pat of raindrops, then we clapped our hands, first against each other, and next against our thighs in loud watery smacks. At the height of the storm, we were stomping our feet on the floor in a thunderous roar, until slowly, slowly we worked our way back up again in reverse order—through the smacking and clapping and rubbing ever more softly—until we were standing once more like suns.
“That was really cool,” said one of the angry boys in the silence. “Can we please do it again?” he asked and everyone laughed.
He was the one who’d cracked the kid over the head too hard when we were playing “duck, duck, gray duck.” I was a bit afraid of him that first night, and not just because he was a big intimidating brute of an eighth grade boy. I’d kept him particularly in my sights because I knew his story—the social workers had briefed me about each of the boys—and his had stood out to me as sadder than most.
Two years before, when he’d been in sixth grade, he’d gone home from school one afternoon and found he was locked out. After he banged on the door and got no answer, he peered through the window and saw his father dead on the living room floor, overdosed on heroin. He believed he couldn’t call the cops. The cops were not his friends. So he waited on the porch for his mother to come home, but she didn’t come. She was a drug addict too, and a prostitute. The boy was her only child. He spent the night sleeping on the porch, huddled into his coat. In the morning, he walked back to school and told a teacher that his dad was dead.
He’d been an angry boy ever since.
I’m going to call him Brandon. After that first “rain” I stopped being afraid of him. He began stopping by my office in the quiet times when most of the other kids were in class. He’d worked out a deal with the teacher of his anger management classroom that whenever he felt like he was going to act in an angry way, he could leave the room and walk up and down the school hallway taking deep breathes instead. It was a practice he’d been taught at school and it worked for him. Up and down he went, past my open office door, past my open office door, past my…until finally he’d backup and ask, “What you doing?” in a voice cloaked in such false nonchalance that it made my heart hurt.
“Nothing much,” I’d say. “Come on in.” And he’d sit down in the horrible story chair near my desk, where all the girls sat narrating their horrible stories, and he’d tell me his own stories, not all of which were horrible. His life was getting better, he told me. He was so happy his mother had agreed to participate in the Tuesday evening experiment. She was doing great, he said. She was getting clean and so was her boyfriend. When summer came they were going to get a dog.
The weeks passed. The Tuesday evenings came and went. A couple of the families dropped out. Others added new members: pregnant older sisters; new boyfriends and step-kids. Every week we did the same thing: dinner, discussion, group, song, “rain.” Kids need structure is a phrase I heard a lot. Kids like to be able to predict what’s going to come next.
More than anything they loved to do “rain.” The ritual of it made them giddy. Even the angriest boy would smack the shit out of his thighs to make a storm. Every week the silence in the wake of it rose off of us like a cure.
I never believed the boys were angry. I believed they were hurt and anger was the safest manifestation of their sorrow. It was the channel down which their impotent male rivers could rage.
Brandon was the angriest of them all, but he was also the sweetest. He took pride in calling himself my assistant. He didn’t go home after school on Tuesdays and then return with his family for dinner like most of the angry boys. He came to my office and talked to me until it was time to help me set up the food in the cafeteria. He staked out the best table for him and his mom and her boyfriend, arranging the silverware just so, then waited for them to arrive.
On the last Tuesday of the program, Brandon and I taped streamers along the tables, a festive touch to honor the occasion. We had graduation certificates to hand out, and donated goodie bags for the families with things like toothbrushes and board games and sets of glassware inside. We had a giant sheet cake that said, Congratulations Families! We’re Stronger Together!
It wasn’t until the cafeteria was buzzing with people that I realized Brandon’s mother and her boyfriend weren’t there. He sat alone at his table. He went to stand at the school’s front door as the sky darkened and the other angry boys drew their discussion cards from the bowl. We split up into groups, but still Brandon’s mother wasn’t there. A half hour later, there was a knock on my classroom door and one of the social workers asked me to step into the hall with Brandon. His mother had been arrested downtown—for prostitution or drugs or both, she didn’t say. She wouldn’t be released from jail until at least tomorrow, the social worker said in a steady voice. Her boyfriend would come as soon as he could. He’d stay with Brandon until his mom got back.
Brandon only nodded at the news, but when I put my hand on his arm, he jerked so violently away from it I thought he might punch me. “Brandon,” I called as he stormed down the hall. “Please come back,” I tried to say firmly, though my voice shook.
“You can’t leave,” the social worker added. “We’re responsible for you.”
He kept going as if we’d said nothing. I had nine angry boys and their siblings waiting for me inside the classroom. I could feel them simmering to a boil on the other side of the door. “Brandon!” I called more sharply, fearful he was going to run from the school.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” he yelled as he turned and walked back down the hallway toward me. And I realized he was right. He wasn’t going anywhere and he’d never intended to. He was only doing what he’d learned to do, against all of his most visceral and reasonable impulses. He was taking deep breaths and walking. He was an angry boy controlling his rage.
Everything about that boy pacing the hallway tells me a story I need to know: that we do not have the right to feel helpless, Helpless Mom. That we must help ourselves. That after destiny has delivered what it delivers, we are responsible for our lives. We can choose to fling our kids into the grass or we can take deep breaths and walk up and down the hall. And everything about Brandon’s mother tells me a story too. We are so far from her, aren’t we? In so many ways, you and I and all the basically good moms we know are not even on the same planet as that woman. She failed and she failed and she failed.
But so have I. And so have you.
What compelled her to not show up that night? What force drove her to do whatever it took to get arrested when she should have been eating lasagna and cake in a school cafeteria with her sweet boy? What was she incapable of forgiving herself for? What did she believe she was helpless to?
I don’t know, but I do know one thing. When it comes to our children, we do not have the luxury of despair. If we rise, they will rise with us every time, no matter how many times we’ve fallen before. I hope you will remember that the next time you fail. I hope I will too. Remembering that is the most important work as parents we can possibly do.
By the time youth group ended that last night of our Tuesday experiment, Brandon had stopped pacing. He alone accepted the graduation certificate and goodie bag on behalf of his family. He ate a piece of cake. He stood in the circle and sang the song the social workers made up and while we were singing, his mother’s boyfriend arrived.
That night when we did “rain” it felt more significant than it ever had before. Our suns were rounder; our hands rubbed together with more verve. We snapped and we clapped and we stomped so loudly it was like the clouds were dumping out their very hearts. We worked our way back from the storm, but instead of quieting it overtook us once more, none of us wanting to stop. It was too much fun. We went on and on and on, from snap to clap and back again, raging and raging , until finally there was nothing to do but raise our arms in surrender and admit that the rain was gone.
Yours,
Sugar
61 responses
Jeezy chreezy, Sugar. That was something.
I have an actual, physical ache in my chest from trying not to cry at work reading this. You. Are. Awesome.
I started this comment with “As a mother…”, but backspaced, because it’s not ONLY as a mother that this touches me to my core; it’s as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a human being, and yes, as the mother of a small child who is by turns the most amazing and terrifying thing I’ve ever done. I think that forever more when I feel old raging waters start to rise and spill over, I will remember “rain” and Brandon and his hallway walking and the sunshine held over his head, and I will mentally slam the thunder out on my thighs, and move on. Thank you. Thank you.
“…that we do not have the right to feel helpless, Helpless Mom. That we must help ourselves.” My favorite line in yet another of your inspiring and wise posts Sugar.
I was an angry teenager. I was abused as a young child and I didn’t know as a teenager why I was angry…I just was. Over the years I learned how to control my temper, but being a mom…that’s the true test. And I’ve had my moments of walking away and pacing and I’ve had my moments of yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs because my frustration is just too much to handle at the moment and I forgot to walk away.
My best friend’s mother always said that anger is a secondary emotion. That there is always something else that is the prequel to the anger…anger is just the way we handle that emotion. Helpless, I find, is usually what comes first. But you are right Sugar…we do not have the right to feel helpless, not when we can help ourselves. Even though there are circumstance that are beyond our control, the ONLY thing we can control is how we deal with them.
Our society is full of “It’s not my fault..it’s because of a, b, or c.” But the truth is, you are responsible for your actions, reactions, and non-actions. If you don’t like something about yourself, change it. No, it’s not easy…it’s not supposed to be. Change is hard and it’s long and it’s scary, but it’s necessary for growth.
My hubby tells me all the time that I have little sympathy for people and their problems…and he’s mostly right. While I feel compassion and upset for people, I also know that none of us are helpless…we just have to admit that we need help and then we must take the first step in helping ourselves. Sometimes you can do it on your own, sometimes you can’t. But it’s not the how or the who that matters…it’s the when. You can start today or never.
OMG, Sugar. Once again you have said the right and powerful thing. Parenthood requires your whole self all the time, and we do not have the “luxury of despair.”
Helpless, you are NOT helpless! You cannot be. You must do everything you can to help yourself and take that help when you can. My husband’s job required him to be away a lot, as well, and caring for children alone can be so overwhelming. I also grew up with an angry, unpredictable parent, and I was terrified that I might lash out at my son. I sometimes told him that mommy needed a time out and he would play quietly or watch TV for 15 to 20 minutes so I could regain my composure. When you do loose your temper, apologize and try to explain that you are feeling badly, that you lost your temper, and that they, your darling girls, are not to blame. There is light at the end of this tunnel. (My son is now 20, well adjusted, and happy.)
It’s not only your life, Helpless, it is their lives as well. You can be the mother you want to be. Parent like a motherfucker!
I have NEVER wrote to you but I was in tears! This is me! This woman is me! I adore my child but sometimes I just snap. While I love my mother…I would never want to be like her…and lets say I would never want my child to say that of me. ;*)
Beautiful!~”When it comes to our children, we do not have the luxury of despair. If we rise, they will rise with us every time, no matter how many times we’ve fallen before.”
This took my breath away. Thank you, Sugar
I admire Helpless Mom for admitting she has a problem. So many times mothers and dads blame it on the kids. “you made me angry. you made me do it.” The mere fact that Helpless Mom is writing for help and seeking therapy makes me just know she can do this. We are gods to our children at those ages. We must never ever abuse that power.
And beautiful writing Sugar, as always.
Brandon’s story is heartbreaking in the best possible way. to be so terribly disappointed, not for the first time, and control yourself anyway…what a brave, brave thing.
I’m trying not to cry at work.
Love this. Thank you, Sugar.
I will keep this in mind if I ever am blessed with a child. It has given me a lot to think about. A very beautiful piece…
Would you consider publishing a collection of your columns in book format? I would buy it for sure.
Helpless Mom – First, thank you so much for finding the courage to reach out for help – both from Sugar and from a therapist. You may not know it yet, but both acts are among the bravest things you could do.
Second, while we do not know each other, I want you to know that I’m living proof that you can, indeed, change. I, too, come from a very chaotic background. I grew up not knowing how to feel, process or express emotions in a healthy way. I didn’t explode. I imploded. (I believe both are equally damaging and equally frightening.) When I got to the point it sounds like you are – the need to reach out, get help, and DO something – I was blessed with a fantastic therapist. It took a lot of time, energy & courage, but I changed. It can be done. And, the view on the other side is well worth the effort.
Sugar – The world is blessed to have you and is better for having you in it. Thank you for all you are and all you do.
You know what, my daughter is 45 years old now and I’ve been embarrassed forever about the way I would fly off the handle at her when she was small. But then I was a teenager who had been married to my rapist with lots more than that to be deeply hurt about. It never occurred to me until I read it here that ‘good’, more mature and less troubled moms had and have that problem too. You have an incredible gift! You are using it well. Thank you from my heart for these words Sugar. Chi miigwetch wendaam.
Sugar, your words are the very best thing in the whole wide world
thank you, as a mother of sons, a mother who has lost her temper and her way, thank you
Damn, girl, you sure know how to tell a story. Thank you. Amazing, as usual.
Thank you. I needed this more than I knew.
I love you, Sugar. This is so excellent.
I totally know that shame, Helpless Mom, and you are definitely capable of moving past it. My mother raged/exploded when I was a kid. And my dad avoided conflict. So it took me years (no, decades) to train myself to regularly communicate anger in a calm but honest way. Here are a few things that might help you or your daughters.
Acknowledge the impact of your actions to your daughters and apologize to them. This doesn’t have to be dramatic. A “Me doing X must have been scary. I’m sorry. I don’t like when I do it either and I am working to change,” can mean wonders. I don’t know how “age appropriate” this is for toddlers but my mom always pretended nothing unusual had happened when she exploded and she never apologized for any of it–until I was 32 and told her how unseen it had made me feel.
When I was first actively working on my own anger expression issues my therapist suggested reading Al-Anon literature. Rage-aholism can have similar impacts on family dynamics as alcoholism. I don’t know whether you struggle with anxiety but taking some meds for mine helped me. No pill will make you not rage but knocking the anxiety down a notch can make it so your coping mechanisms have a better shot at succeeding.
Create a fall back option for times when you’re feeling the explosion rise up in you and you can’t remove yourself easily form the situation (a core reason parenting is such a challenge!) If I can’t remove myself I sometimes do an exaggerated stomp and say, “Ooh, golly, I am feeling really overwhelmed right now!” Some of my friends call this my “grumpy grandpa” routine. It looks goofy but it helps me not lash out at others.
Lastly, consider Brené Brown’s books/blog on shame resilience and self-compassion. So, so helpful to a lot of people I know. And it has come from a really difficult place Brown refers to as her “nervous breakdown/spiritual awakening.”
Working to not rage is a wonderful gift to give yourself but a doubly amazing one to give your daughters and future generations. Wishing you much support…
Sugar,
Thank you for writing this column. It is wonderful, and awful, and real. We all need to come clean on our poor parenting, and our pain about it, and how to find our way to another side. And see the resilience of children, who will survive almost anything. And sometimes, we get second chances with them. I whole heartedly endorse your recommendation for Helpless Mom to find help, to take charge of making it better, because she’s the only one who can.
I haven’t written in before but I simply had to this time. This brings up so many memories of child care work in my past, which is a little strange as I was not (to my knowledge) working with kids who had struggled with so much. Your column is to me what the Neverending Story was to Bastian Bux, a glimpse into what can be if only I can summon the courage to look. Thank you.
Dearest Sugar, this one really hit home for me and I’m not a parent. We’re working on it, though, and I’ve always worried about becoming a mom for these very reasons. I’ve often felt defensive when people suggest that “allowing” myself to lose it is a decision. Your story about Brandon and rain makes me feel a lot more hopeful and determined about changing my own rages. You write with so much love. You made me cry into my black bean soup today.
Not-Helpless Mom, I send you hugs and reassurances. I’m so glad you wrote this letter. Sugar is right: there’s so much good-heartedness in your words. Your description of your background sounds very, very much like mine, as does your temper. With me I think of it as some kind of internal switch or circuit that gets tripped when I’m overwhelmed or exhausted enough. Apologizing and acknowledging the way your freakouts affect other people really does make a big difference, at least while you’re (okay, we’re) learning how to deal. Know that you’re not alone in struggling with this stuff.
I’m not a mother, but I plan to have children one day and I hope I can be as wise as you.
“Everything about that boy pacing the hallway tells me a story I need to know: that we do not have the right to feel helpless, Helpless Mom. That we must help ourselves. That after destiny has delivered what it delivers, we are responsible for our lives. We can choose to fling our kids into the grass or we can take deep breaths and walk up and down the hall.”
Oh yes. I read Helpless Mom’s post with more and more anxiety and frustration, topped off by her signature of “Helpless”. And Sugar nailed on the head exactly how to fix it.
My childhood was spent navigating a maelstrom of fun and joking that could flip in an instant into raging, screaming, hitting. And I was determined not to repeat it.
But I didn’t have any plan, any roadmap how to do so. So I found myself in the same situation as Mom, feeling myself lose control, and somehow NEEDING it. I’m not sure where the insight came from, but I am convinced it was divine, because at the same time I was fighting the sane impulse to *not* indulge that crazed need for rage, I was begging for help. Somehow someone or something far wiser than me stepped into my brain.
The insight was, rage is self indulgent. It is not a reaction to the world, to the dryer breaking down, to the naughty, (at the moment) bratty kid standing before you, it is a selfish tantrum against all that. And about as effective. Somehow, that concept was the only thing (therapy, praying, fear of becoming my parents) that worked. Somehow that concept blasted me out of my HELPLESS “oh dear, my temper has overtaken me again” mode and made me realize that *I* was the only one who could decide not to indulge in anger.
That one blinding moment was the basis, but putting it into practical effect was still work. But at least I now knew where to put the blame for it, and the onus of fixing it – not on the world at large, but on me.
As far as a practical roadmap, somehow I came across the book “Siblings Without Rivalry”. I hope it is still in print. Even if you don’t have more than one child, the things it has to say about setting down a plan for what are “violations” and what are not! helped me enormously. What *exactly* are you angry about at that moment? Sometimes, measured anger is necessary. A violent reaction is not.
Also helpful was the advice to learn to deal with the smaller irritants, and stop saying “if you do that one. more. time”, and just go ahead and dole out the discipline right then, because the only thing that happens with added chances to misbehave is that YOUR anger escalates. The kid isn’t going to figure out between time 1 and time 14 of doing something irritating that they shouldn’t do it, they’re just figuring out that you’ll allow it until all of a sudden you won’t. Great book.
My kids were about 5 and 7 when I had this revelation. They were at the height of their mischievousness and sibling fighting. This rather quickly developed into my favorite years with them. I hope you get back on track, Mom. I refuse to call you “helpless”.
Ohjesus, Sugar, your words are so heartfelt and beautiful. What a gorgeous, weepy read.
Helpless Mom, congratulations on taking the huge, huge step of seeking out a therapist to deal with your shit. I can’t help but offer some unsolicited advice: if the first (or second or fifth) person you see doesn’t make you feel like your time together will give you a safe place to dig long and deep into the rotted muck of shame and anger that consumes you,then move the fuck on to the next on the list, as fast as your legs will carry you. I struggle with rage (and her passive, insidious sister, depression) and it took me several tries to find the amazing therapist who changed my life. A bad therapist (and, um, there are many) can do more damage than no therapist at all. The tiny voice that prodded your honesty in your letter to Sugar will tell you when it’s right.
This was my mother. Uncontrollable rage, but only sometimes. And my dad was working in another state for part of my childhood, so she was alone with us, too. My brother and I were not easy children. She tolerated and tolerated and tolerated and then FREAKED OUT.
Then one day a doctor put her on anti depressants to treat her menopause symptoms. NIGHT AND DAY. I’m telling you, I had to re-learn how to interact with my mother, because she was no longer nuts.
And it’s in me, too. My depression in my teenage years also came out as rage. For a long time I didn’t know how to function if I wasn’t angry. Like, how do you get out of bed, face the day, if you don’t have the energy that being angry gives you?
Try anti depressants. And it make take more than one try — Prozac didn’t do much for me, other than make me foggy, but I am not exaggerating when I say that Wellbutrin saved. my. life.
Do it for your kids, but do it for yourself, too.
Thank you for this. And yes, it does apply even without kids. It’s crazy how much it applies. Thank you Sugar. xo
My God, Sugar, this might be my favorite column of yours yet. I think most moms feel the way that Helpless does from time to time (especially when we’re parenting alone), and your answer is enlightening and heart-breaking and exactly what we need to hear.
When it comes to our children, we do not have the luxury of despair. If we rise, they will rise with us every time, no matter how many times we’ve fallen before.
Thank you, Sugar. Somehow the universe knew I needed to hear this today.
Oh Sugar, to forgive the past and simply BE…i am worthy i say to myself i am i am iam…i have to say it often because it is the truth…You reminded me of that truth, today…i know it isn’t easy giving up the lies weve been told but you always remind me with your lovely words how possible it is for me to BE loved…i to was a young angry mother wit 3 young sons who are now grown and turned out truly wonderful despite that fact i was less than perfect to them…Now they have there own children and i am happy i did not stain them to much wit my anger…Maybe i helped them learn how not to be sometimes…They are three good men and iam blessed to have them in my life…You are so right Suger they taught me how much i needed to growup…And i did wit them and God in my life…Brightest blessings to you and yours sweet Suger…e*
Jesus, Sugar– that was amazing, and now I’m utterly wiped out. What a powerful response. “we have no right to feel helpless”–I’m not gonna forget that. Thanks for this incredible column.
That was the best thing i have ever read in my life.
Sugar, your compassionate advice is commendable, but I agree with Stephen Elliot; A grown woman who throws her four year old child to the ground needs to be put behind bars. Unacceptable! Unacceptable! Unacceptable!
Oooooooooo.
@TerrySue: Unacceptable, absolutely! Behind bars, what?! Often what is best for the child is not taking their parents away but helping their families become healthier ones. Not-Helpless Mom knows her behavior is wrong in those moments, otherwise she wouldn’t have written. The whole judge-then-punish approach doesn’t help people who are *trying* to do better actually *do* better. It just gives those on the “outside” a false sense of security…and superiority.
I’m not saying lock her up and throw away the key, but social comeuppance will wake an abusive parent up, since an innocent child can’t. I’d like to see Ms Helpless throw down another adult and see what happens.
you threw your kid out of the car and onto the ground? way to go.
I was that child, the child thrown out of the car and onto the grass, but then I was kicked and beaten. But if somebody had come and taken my mother and put her in jail the whole family would have fallen apart. Yes, we needed help, a lot of it, but it didn’t come.
My heart does bleed for every child there that does experience the feeling of great abandonment and unfairness that their life seams to have dealt them, especially in cases like Brandon’s.
I can tell you as a mum myself of two extremely beautiful children, there are times when I do “lose it” myself. Definitely not to the extent that my mother did. I have never beaten any child of mine. But I have yelled yes just through sheer frustration at the kind of “Chinese water torture”(I’ve heard it explained this way and find it appropriate) that you can get from very young ones.
I know breaking the cycle of abuse is extremely hard, but I can tell you that every time I find myself at that point I try so hard to remember my mother and how scared she made me, how small she made me, how “helpless” she made me, me who loved her to no end, me who didn’t know any better because I was little, me who was her daughter.Every time I feel so frustrated that someone’s reaction might be to smack, I think to myself they are precious, they can be broken, I don’t want to break them, I don’t want to break their hearts like mine was.
I don’t judge you “Helpless” I understand you are battling. I battle too. I just ask those others out there to not judge too as we all have our imperfections that we need to work out. Let the first person who has not sinned throw the first stone.
@Terry Sue: It seems to me that Helpless Mom has had her own personal comeuppance. Putting a mother behind bars punishes the child as much as the parent, and can actually exacerbate the situation in many cases. Throwing your kid out of the car and onto the ground is shitty, but she knows that, and is very sincerely and plaintively asking for advice and help on how to deal with the demons that push her to that kind of behavior.
If all you got out of either of these letters was “but her behind bars,” I think you’re missing an important human element to this story.
@ Linda S.: The thing is, the “personal comeuppance” of anonymously sharing your crimes and then being judged by other anonymous people on a comment thread on the internet, no matter how much it might sting at the time, isn’t enough to protect kids from angry adults who have problems controlling themselves. Removing an abusive parent from a situation where they can abuse kids — whether that’s putting them “behind bars” or not — doesn’t “punish the child as much as the parent”. Being thrown on the ground is a punishment. Watching your parent have a flat-out, directed-at-you meltdown is a punishment, and it’s going to fuck a kid up. Being separated from your parent is also a punishment, true, but it might be less traumatic, ultimately, and it’s at least a punishment that has some end to it, some meaning. Abuse punishes a child for no crime save existing. Punishing the abuser punishes the crime of abuse, sparing the child further punishment, at least.
Kids are not really as “resilient”, I think, as some comments in the thread seem to suggest. Christ, they’re *people*, even if they’re smaller; they’re not any more angelic or forgiving or impervious than bigger humans are. Four is definitely old enough to remember something like being thrown to the ground, to be affected by it profoundly. It’s good the OP is asking for help, but help often takes a long damn time. Change is slow. It might be a good idea for Helpless Mom to not be around the kids, if possible — at least, not alone — until she can absolutely definitely NOT abuse her kids. Just entering therapy is not going to make the rage-fits go away, any more than recognizing the problem (even though that’s important) makes up for the damage already done.
I don’t say this to discourage the OP, or anyone else, but seriously: things you do to your kids can haunt them for a really damn long time. It’s not like they’re going to forget the bad shit you do — as the OP should know from her own childhood. It doesn’t matter how swooningly deep their births plunge you into the crystalline realms of pure (yet abstract) love. It doesn’t matter that you consider yourself an attachment parent, or that you feel you have close and affectionate relationships. What matters is that you keep your demons in your head when your kids are around. Once you have kids, you do whatever it takes to not hurt them. If you can’t do that, no matter what you feel about them, it’s your responsibility not to be around them until you’re sure you can.
do you know how Brandon is doing? probably not. But if you do, i’d really like to know. I’m a senior studying psychology, and i’ve had my stint interning in a psych ward.c 12-18 crisis male. there were some beautiful moments and i’d remind myself each shift, an experience of hope today may mean something for tomorrow but at least they had hope today. but it haunts me to think which boys are no longer here or which are in jail or which are here and aren’t in jail and putting their pain in someone else.
i really hope brandon is doing okay enough.
Sugar, how do you do it, every single post? I’m a 38 year old man, and fighting back the cry while reading this… it’s exhausting. You are supremely talented. Are you published elsewhere, I’d like to read some non-advice-column Sugar.
Pete
Helpless Mom you told my story exactly (including the backstory). One day I got to a point where I said “I will change this no matter what”. It’s been a long road but I have. First thing is to realize that what happened to you as a child was REAL abuse and deeply scarring. Recent research has found that verbal abuse (such as your mom saying that she wanted to run away) is more linked to adulthood measures of trauma than any other form of abuse except sexual abuse by a close family member, and it even rivaled that in some categories. http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/41/13/28.full
You were seriously injured as a child and you probably have PTSD (not to diagnose you, but your fears and behaviors and anger fit perfectly). This is real, there is real help, it is not just a “failing” on your part. Emotional trauma like this seriously alters your body and how it processes neurotransmitters, hormones, etc. What has healed me is to do very drastic adrenal support and very deep healing (including dietary changes- when I did the GAPS diet, which you can google, it had a tremendous impact on my ability to tolerate stress and my emotional health. Tremendous). You can’t change the past, but you CAN change the future. I wish I could talk with you directly about this.
One more thing- counseling can help if it helps you identify what happened, take it seriously, and move forward. If it is more about “talking about what happened” and “processing it” it can actually re-traumatize you and do harm. Counseling cannot fix this- you have a physical, biological injury from stress. Lastly, I can’t recommend enough that you try attending Al Anon. It’s not just for substance abuse, it helped me immensely with exactly what you are talking about here. I once heard someone there say that their parent was a “rage-a-holic” and that really clicked for me.
Thank you, so much, Sugar. Every week I anxiously await your next post, but this one really struck a chord in me. Thank you for reminding me that I do not have the right to be hopeless (and that none of us do).
I really needed to hear that.
Dear OP, Unless the father is not part of your household and/or you are not a couple and/or you do not receive any kind of support from him at all, you are NOT a “single mom” even part of the time.
Please do not insult the single moms who are busting their butts on their own 24/7 with your whining that your living, cohabitating, and financially-contributing *husband* works long hours.
@cubeb: Damn, I’m mad I didn’t check this earlier. I appreciate the reply, and have a few thoughts.
Just for clarification, the personal comeuppance I was referring to was not the judgment of anonymous or nigh anonymous internet peers – it was the obvious anguish that the writer of this letter is putting herself through about it. She’s not thinking to herself, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”; she recognizes there’s a problem. That’s a lot more than a lot of parents who rage out at their kids do.
Now with that out of the way, I think it’s important to talk about the definition of “abuse.” Now, I was never a social worker, but for four years I was what is called where I come from a “family worker” in a public preschool. Family workers were employed at schools in low-income districts to serve as liaisons between the families of the students and the schools’ administrations. The role had administrative qualities, but it generally ended up being mostly social service. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I’m a psychologist or a social worker, but in that job, I saw kids who were being for real abused and neglected; a 3-year-old with burn marks and bruises; a 4-year old who would climb onto classmates at naptime and mime having sex because she and her mother shared a bed, and this didn’t stop her mother from having boyfriends over and having sex with them with the child in the bed (true story). Another 4-year-old who almost choked on her own teeth at lunchtime one day because they’d rotted out of her mouth – her parents were both heroin addicts and neglected her hygiene that badly.
I’m not saying that a case needs to be as extreme as any or all of these to warrant the label of “abuse,” but I think some people’s perceptions of the “abuse spectrum” are kind of off.
Now, I was hit as a kid. And not like, “Spankity spank, don’t do it next time” hit – like full-throttle “Oh shit, mama’s gonna beat my ass right into next week” hit. Pardon the cliche, but it’s real: I was hit with chancletas, wooden spoons, wire hangers, broomsticks, basically anything my mom could get her hands on. And when she couldn’t get her hands on, she’d get her hands on me; pull my hair, kick me, pinch the shit out of me (now, this may sound less severe than some of the other stuff, but she really knew how to find just the right spot and that shit HURT!).
Was this OK? No way! Growing up the way I did, with my parents and stepparents behaving in the various dysfunctional ways that they did, effed me up bigtime. I’m in my early 30s now, and I still recognize the the ways it affected my perceptions of how relationships are supposed to be, the ways it genuinely hurt and damaged me, and honestly, how brutally angry it made me as a kid, a teenager, and a young adult. It wasn’t only hitting – there were issues of substance abuse and emotional stuff and all kinds of things that make my family sound pretty awful on paper. Or, you know, screen.
But – and Sugar mentions this above – kids -do- need a sense of stability and routine. They -do- need to feel like home is home and that they can at least rely on the fact that home and someone they depend on will be there. My parents, from what I could tell, didn’t see much of a problem with their disciplinary tactics, and weren’t terribly concerned about the long-term effects their behaviors might have had on me. And despite the bad things my parents individually and collectively did, I never doubted that they loved me. (OK, well, my stepmother definitely never loved me, but 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.) My experiences growing up were not always positive, but you couldn’t have paid me enough to leave my mother or live with a foster family. (And honestly, let’s not even get started on how effed the fostering system can be.)
Hitting your kids is not cool or OK. But being absent from your kid’s lives is actually even worse, especially if you’re the kind of parent who can recognize that getting physical and insanely angry at your kids is not OK and actually wants to do something about it.
Sugar, thank you so much for both columns regarding your work at this school. Two of these angry boys are my neighbors and young friends…
“The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you’re talking about because she experienced that thing too cannot be over-estimated.”
@Mary above: trust me, to the kid it makes little difference whether the dad contributes financially and is coming home eventually or not. As the child of an work-related absentee father, I felt like the child of a single parent. She’s a parent, singular, with no means of practical support much of the time. It isn’t belittling “truly” single parents to acknowledge that as hard.
“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.
Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections.
But instantly set about remedying them.
Every day begin the task anew.”
~ Saint Francis de Sales
I think you just helped me forgive my mom’s anger problems. Wow. Thank you.
Oh honey, I’m flashing back to being a stay-at-home mom to two pre-schoolers with a husband who worked long hours and took ample time for himself when he wasn’t working. My guilt of not bringing in an income made me take on all domestic tasks…because that’s what my mom did. I was a good…nay, great mom 95% of the time…oh, but that other 5%. I hang my head in shame.
See, I firmly believe that we’re all given only so much patience and particularly when we have small children, we have to mete it out like a thrifty miser. Pick your battles during the day. If they want to wear mis-matched clothes or snowboots in summer, let them. Cheat for “me time” by going to McD’s (with the Playplace) and texting with friends for an hour while the kids play. I got a headset for my homephone so I could multi-task, chatting with another stay-at-home mom while I did laundry or cooked, with kids screaming in the background. I even made their bedroom a “safe room” that I could put them in…lock the door, and give *Mama* a time-out.
In the end, I realized that I needed time away from the kids to maintain my sanity *for* the kids. That time had to be regular, scheduled, unmovable, *for me*, pleasurable, and nothing to do with kids. We were poor as church mice, so I volunteered with a group that made crafts to sell at fairs to raise money. Once a week I sat with the old biddies, gossiped, drank wine, and decompressed.
You’re not a bad person. I was raised in a loving (albeit sometimes loud) household with no abuse. There were times when I scared myself with the rage that an adorable little moppit could induce in me. That part is normal. But it’s also a sign that you’re trying to do too much without support. Respect that sign.
Dear sweet, amazing, “helpless mom,”
You are not alone!! I am a midwife. I work with awesome, wonderful, beautiful mamas every day, who love their children unconditionally, who are happily welcoming new babies into their lives, and who lash out in pain and anger and frustration, too. I work at a holistic women and family health center in southern Oregon (Medford/Ashland). Among midwives and nutritionists and other practitioners, we also have an incredible psychotherapist at our clinic. She doesn’t do talk therapy. There’s no black couch. There’s no delving into the far recesses of your dark and painful past to dig up old traumas and trudge back through them yet again. No. What she does is body-mind-spirit re-integration, using meridian tapping techniques and kinesiology. She let’s your body tell the stories that need to be told, and gently guides you through re-programming the way you manage and respond to those stories, and how you show up in the present moment, when things get difficult. The work is nothing short of miraculous. I highly suggest you seek out someone in your own area who can help you do this. If you are in Oregon, I can probably help you find some resources. But don’t give up. You are not alone out there. There is help available, and you can get through this!
This might be the most real thing I have ever read on the Internet.
As a former inner city public school teacher of many hurting children (and a few clinically emotionally disturbed), I salute you. This tells so many of my boys’ stories with truth and compassion. Brilliant.
Hey Helpless Mom,
I couldn’t even read Sugar’s answer to you because by the time I finished reading your letter, I was crying too hard. You sound just like my mom. You sound just. like. my mom. Except my mom didn’t get therapy when I was four. She and my dad entered couples’ therapy when I was eleven, where they had sessions individually and together. My mom’s anger got a lot better after that as she learned to manage and communicate her feelings of frustration with the help of a truly excellent therapist.
I want to thank you for recognizing your problem and seeking help. There’s a predisposition to anxiety issues running in our family, I’m sure of it, and I inherited it. There was a lot of stuff going on at home (my younger brother had some developmental issues) and at school, but my mom’s anger didn’t help. I’m 22 now, and I’ve already had two severe depressive episodes.
Your daughters may never understand what you are doing for them. But I do, and I am grateful from the bottom of my heart. I also want to offer encouragement. You can change. It’s hard, and it can hurt, but it is eminently doable, and it is absolutely worth it.
I wish you the best of luck.
Too much. These writings are almost too beautiful to look at.
Another Sugar line etched on to my soul:
“When it comes to our children, we do not have the luxury of despair. If we rise, they will rise with us every time, no matter how many times we’ve fallen before.”
Damn. Just damn.
I just found this column because of Momastery and I have been reading my eyes out. This one IS ME. It is me exactly, and I thank you so much for writing these words I so needed to read.
So incredibly beautiful and insightful. My heart breaks for all the Brandons in the world. Thank you, Sugar, for the wonderful advice–pushing us all upward!
I’m definitely crying.
“We do not have the right to feel helpless. We must help ourselves.”
I’m a therapist and work with teenagers. After reading all of your posts in 2 days, this one will stay with me the most and that quote will be cited countless times in future sessions.
I’m rereading the archives effort the umpteenth time. I have spent the last year trying to find a way past the damage my parents and family inflicted so I can have a healthy relationship with my partner.
Helpless Mom, I hope things are better by now. Please know that just by recognizing your behavior needs work, you are giving your children a gift. Admitting to imperfections and modeling how to try to do better is so important, and I never got that from my parents. It’s part of the damage I’m working on.
We never become perfect, but reaching to do better is a skill. Bless you for living that for your kids. And bless Sugar for giving us these heart-opening stories. I’m grateful for all of it.
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