Sep. 13, 2008 - Gebre's Broken Heart
Sometimes I’m a great mom. Mostly I’m a mediocre mom. Every once in a while I am a really bad mom.
Lately Gebre and I have been battling over potty time. He doesn’t want to use the potty. I want him to. If I don’t physically pick him up and take him to the bathroom, he will dance around hollering until the last minute, and then try to make it to the potty in time. Sometimes he doesn’t quite make it.
He knows better. He’s perfectly capable of taking himself to the potty. For whatever reason, he’d rather pee on the floor and himself than sit on the potty. And that just makes me mad. Fuming mad, actually. On one of these occasions I just lost it.
I yelled and fussed and complained and hollered at him as he stood miserably in the shower getting clean. Later, feeling guilty, I gathered him up in my arms and asked him to forgive me for losing my temper. He did, but when I asked how he was feeling, he said “You spanked my heart, and it’s broken!” Oh, my own heart broke then. What a rotten mother I am!
I am so grateful for my “gotcha’ boy” Gebre. He has no idea how his little from-the-heart comments have affected me in the short time that he’s been talking. This time he reminded me that my children are precious little souls, needing patience and love even in the midst of discipline. It is wrong to come home and kick the dog after a long, frustrating day at work. How much more wrong it is to take out my frustrations on my children, even if it’s “only” verbally.
The failure wasn’t even Gebre’s. He was doing what children do. The fault was all mine. I hadn’t trained him to obey on this issue. I had been too busy to direct him to the bathroom. I had been too busy to check to make sure he’d even gotten to the bathroom. The person who needed “a piece of my mind” wasn’t Gebre at all, it was me!
Comments
Sep. 14, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
What a thought-provoking post, Maggie. And your ability to reflect on your parenting is yet another thing that suggests to me what a wonderful mother you truly are.
Cxx
Sep. 15, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by mickey
aww maggie that was such a heart-wrencher! little gebre is so eloquent... I bet he's gonna be a famous poet some day.
