Am I doing it all wrong?
Annie Ruth Brown grew up in a slave shack on the Blue Lake Plantation beneath the whithering Mississippi sun. She and her children worked the surrounding fields for little to no pay, sometimes to the point of passing out, from 1964 til 1994 — an era when slavery had supposedly been illegal for more than one hundred years.
Annie has since moved to Itta Bena, a tiny town a couple miles from that four-room shack. She helms a comfortable home with a revolving screen door of kids, grandkids, neighbor kids, and strays, a loving swirl of chaos eddying around its matriarchal island. Annie has stories like you wouldn’t believe, as you can imagine, but I started thinking about her today for one story in particular. It flashed suddenly to my mind this morning when I had to physically restrain myself from hitting my child.
I’ve only met Annie once. I sat in an uncomfortable concave hole in her threadbare couch one March morning last year, and listened as she told me things I will never be able to scrape from my memory. Indignities and violence suffered on a daily basis simply for being born the color of lovingly shined mahogany. She testified her life story to me that day, spoke things that had me shedding torrents of silent tears, had me terrified I’d be unable to survive the hearing. But she told me a story that made me laugh, too. It was about the time her new neighbors called the police when they saw her take a belt to her grandson. The local officer approached her front door cowering. He was the age of her children, and he’d known her all his life. He knew she wasn’t abusive. He believed she’d had a good reason to do what she’d done. That grown officer of the law, armed with a gun and strong as an ox, respectfully shrunk in the presence of that proud southern mama. He slinked inside her house, saying, “I’m so sorry to bother you, Mrs. Brown. It won’t happen again.”
In Wisconsin, in the gorgeous pocket I live in, we don’t have a whole lot of heartache. That’s not to say we don’t suffer the same horrific car accidents, the same percentage of domestic abuse, the same incidences of random violence, it’s just to say that our level of basic economic comfort is higher than many. The poorest of the poor kids don’t go hungry or naked, and there’s not a single homeless person on the streets of our town. And around here? You don’t hit your kids. You don’t spank them, let alone take them behind the woodshed. If you do? If a cop responds to a call at your house? He’s not cowering.
I don’t know what my life would be like if I’d been raised in a different setting, among different cultural mores and norms, but in this life, I don’t hit my kids. The rare gentle swats to the behind have come in moments of grave danger, or in play. My husband doesn’t hit my kids, we don’t believe in hitting our kids, and I cringe when I see others do it. It doesn’t escape my attention, though, that every single one of the children that ran past Annie Ruth Brown that day called her “ma’am” as they stopped to quickly snuggle with her. These were not abused children.
Emma is the challenge that Gretta never was. She has the ability to boil my blood to a temperature I never knew it could reach. I even wonder, sometimes, if it’s more than the normal tantrums of her age group, if there’s some underlying psychosis driving the worst of her behavior. If I put her left sock on before her right sock, she will have a full-on meltdown. If I lift her out of bed from the left side instead of the right, she will work herself up into such a froth it takes hours to come down. To be clear to my social worker readers, it’s not the order of things per say, it’s that I’m not doing it exactly as she demanded. It’s beyond being bossy, though — she is utterly unable to control her emotions in these moments. She always, always apologizes later. “I’m sowwy I fweaked out, mom. I’m so sowwy.” And each time we go through this, at least daily, I feel more and more helpless. And so angry, so angry in these moments, I hate myself. I shrink beneath the weight of my own self-control, and the horror I feel that I need to work so hard to use it.
I know I’m not the only one that goes through this. I also know that child abuse is a very real issue, and that’s not really what I’m talking about here. I’m sitting here this morning, coffee gone cold, wiped out from another episode that made us 20 minutes late to school this morning. I’m thinking about Annie, and I’m thinking about Emma’s uncontrollable rages, and I’m swallowing down a bitterness born from more than just dime store java. I’m asking myself hard questions, the least of not being this one:
Am I doing it all wrong?
Maria says:
April 15th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Lara says:
That’s the problem with parenting right there. It’ll take at least 18-20 years to know the answer to that question. And even then, you won’t know if it was YOU that did it wrong or someone else. You just muddle your way through, day to day. But after reading your blog for a while, I’m pretty sure you’re doing it right.
There are some stressful ages in there… but you love them, you don’t beat them, and you do your best.
Isn’t that what we always tell our kids, “Just do your best”?
April 15th, 2008 at 10:57 am
SWF42 says:
As a parent who has asked herself the same question, many more times than once, I’ll share with you the conclusion I finally reached.
We’re only doing it wrong if we never ask ourselves if we’re doing it wrong.
I hope that was more help to you than it was to me. But it did help me.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Jess says:
I nanny… and I don’t know how hold Emma is, but I watch a 4 yr old, 2 and a half yr old, and a 7 month old. All three of them go through situations like that. The 4 yr old will start crying and throwing a tantrum because she’s thirsty or something similar, before she even asks someone if she can have something to drink. The 2 year old freaks out when you try to dress her quickly because she wants to do it herself or you’re not putting things on in the correct order. She screams and cries until you finally just throw her clothes on the floor and tell her to do it herself… and then it takes her 15x longer than it would have taken you and you’re late. The baby cries when you even make a suggestion of setting her down for a second. If you’re walking around with her and then sit down because she’s getting heavy, she starts screaming because she wants you to be walking around while you’re holding her. It’s infuriating sometimes and I understand that boiling up anger/frustration that you feel. It sounds like you clearly have this happen a lot more often than I might, but I don’t think you’re doing something wrong… kids these days just don’t have the respect or the patience that they did a long time ago. I think it has to do with the fact that they don’t fear/respect adults… probably because the punishments are a lot less intimidating. A child gets over a 5 minute time out a lot quicker than a painful spanking with a wooden spoon.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:25 am
mamatulip says:
SWF42 said exactly what I was thinking.
This is a fantastic post.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Aunt Becky says:
Oh Moog, we really have to talk. You must have heard about the issues I’ve been having with Jordynn right? Sounds pretty identical to what’s going on with Emma. We are in therapy now, the doctors kept insisting she would grow out of it. And here we are 2-3 years later and guess what? It hasn’t happened yet. In fact it’s just gotten worse, because now she’s big enough to throw things and tell me she hates me. And she’s so incredibly STRONG. I’ve tried just about everything imaginable, from trying to stay as calm as possible and love her through it, to Super Nanny. Nothing has done the job. We’ve only been to therapy once, but I am encouraged and hopeful. Call me. We’ll do lunch!
Love you bunches. hang in there.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:34 am
furiousball says:
I think mamatulip said exactly what I was thinking when she said SWF42 said exactly what she was thinking. I was thinking mamatulip was thinking that. Weird huh?
In all seriousness, we’re all gonna screw up. You are questioning an imperfection. Remember, life grades on a curve.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Natalie says:
No, you are not doing it wrong, you are doing it the best way you know how.
You know I’ve had anger control issues with my own son. Nobody would ever say he is an abused child, even my social worker stepmom, who has seen me at my very worst. She just smiles and gives me props for handling it as best as I can. Little Man is like your Emma, or at least he used to be. At 4 1/2 he is finally starting to understand reason and disappointment. I doubt your daughter would suddenly become a “easier” child if you were to parent her differently.
I have had numerous people tell me the same thing that SWF42 said when I write about my own struggles (I think you may have been one?), and the beauty of it is that it is so very true.
Ease up on yourself, you are becoming too much like me
April 15th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
flutter says:
I imagine that every parent goes through this feeling. This helpless feeling this inability to be faithful in one’s own ability.
I know I drove my mother absolutely batty. I think you are doing it just right
April 15th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Chanda says:
I agree with everyone else who can actually ante up with the parental stones to say it. You are doing fine. I do know that kids go through developmental stages, and their communication skills are not at the same level as their desire to communicate their needs,and thus a temper tantrum is born. Hell, I think Im still there. From what I read here, and from the pictures you post of those two bright, happy, open, kind faces, you are a great mom. Care to adopt me?
April 15th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
MsMVNJ says:
Look, even with every parenting book out there, there’s no instruction manual for how *you’re* supposed to feel while dealing with this. Take it from a mother of an autistic child, you just have to tell yourself, you’re doing the best that you can. You don’t hit your kids, you love them to pieces, and the fact that you worry about it, speaks volumes about your caring. No one is perfect and it’s okay to vent – venting and a timeout now saves many dollars in therapy later.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Kristin says:
If you were doing it all wrong, you wouldn’t ask the question. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that BECAUSE you asked the question, you are probably doing just about everything right.
Whatever the hell “right” is.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Gypsy says:
I grew up and live not all that far from Annie Ruth. In the same region, anyway, with the same prevalent heartache (not mine, though). And in those places, under those circumstances, sometimes a firm hand is required.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
liv says:
at the risk of seeming flippant, i’ll just say that i agree with furiousball who agreed with mamatulip who agreed with swf42. whew. we all agree. kids stretch us. sometimes the stretching hurts.
April 15th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
sspare says:
I don’t have kids so you know I know nothing abt this.
But I know YOU. Damn well. And I see you with your kids A LOT. And I’ve been there when Emma has melted down. And I’ve seen your reaction. And I have never ONCE thought you were doing it all wrong.
Remember that day I got into the car accident and you and Emma came over to drink beer and play with my green desk? After you left my mom said, “Maggie is a REALLY GREAT MOTHER.” And she knows of what she speaks.
Again, I don’t have kids, but I know a bad parent when I see one, and I never never NEVER see that in you. Promise.
April 15th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
gamewarden says:
WOW GOOD STUFF!!!
April 15th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Chris in Flux says:
I can certainly relate to the question. But I think that we’re doing it the only way to do it – day at a time, try not to go completely mad. There are no perfect parents, despite what we see on the TV.
April 15th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
jadedsoul says:
I am the parent of 4 wonderful children ranging from 12 to 16……(stair-steps), and I assure you, there is nothing that you are doing wrong. She is just trying to find her place and pushing to see how far she can push. Don’t panic, stand firm, don’t let her know that she has rattled you. She sounds like a little firecracker! And if nurtured positivley, what a strong woman she will become one day!!
April 15th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
we_be_toys says:
3 years old is a vile age – they’re cute but they’re evil as a snake too. The really bright ones often have particular issues with controlling how things are done and lose their shit faster. Cold damn consolation, I know, but stay the course; the big no-no is caving in to the tantrum, but you might be able to avoid some of them by giving her some autonomay in the decisions that have to be made (green socks or blue? waffles or toast?).
Of course what do I know? Evidently both my writing and my painting are comparable to scrapbooking, so maybe my parenting advice is shit too.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
noble pig says:
It’s a total personality thing with these kids. My good friends have their child in therapy becuase they spent so many years trying to fix everything for him and make it the way he wanted it. And now they are trying to unravel all of that and it’s working well. There’s always hope. Things will get better.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Ryan says:
Maggie, an aside:
“…a loving swirl of chaos eddying around its matriarchal island” is a sentence of such vocabularialistic wonder that I cannot get it out of my head.
Thank you.
Ryan
April 15th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Maria says:
you are NOT doing it wrong. not at all. shush that thought in your head. NOW.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Candance says:
I am trying to leave you this great comment, but oddly enough, my kids are making me insane at this exact moment, so I can’t say what I want to say. I will be back, though. I may also be intoxicated, which will make my well thought out comment on parenting so much better.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Lori says:
I have to agree with everyone else that agreed with SWF 42. We all agonize over the “am I doing this right” question. Any kid, any age will bring that out in a mom or dad. We just do the best we can with what we have.
The fact that Emma apologizes to you after she “freaks out” speaks volumes to me.
My average-mom opinion is that she recognizes that behavior isn’t acceptable, and it seems like she’s trying to gain control over it.
Sometimes she can, somtimes she can’t.
As an adult, we know we can’t throw a hissy fit. (Although we may dearly love to) She’s still at that age where impulses aren’t well-controlled.
I think you’re doing fine. At least as well as the rest of us, if not better.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Candance says:
Okay, I’m back and not drunk, dammit. I am by no means qualified to give you any kind of parenting advice because I am still doing mothering through trial and error. Some days it feels like a whole lot of error. However, I have learned that, if we tell the truth, each and every mother has been right where you are. And, if they say they haven’t they are either lying, a robot, or have really good drugs that they should be sharing with all the rest of us!!
April 15th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
karey m. says:
i always think that i’ll know if we’re doing it all wrong in…ohhhh…about 10 years. when they turn up stumbling all amy winehouse.
i look at parents here, and they are HARSH. but their kids? are working all damn day in between school. they even have a break in the afternoons so they can return home to work. and this isn’t even the palestinian camps! much less the iraqi ones…
too many words, but this is a tough one. my girlies, for as worldly and as capable and as honest as i’ve tried to mold ‘em…are soft. often rude. have a sense of entitlement that just…is. there are way too many moments when i question if i’m doing it all wrong.
but then there are those moments…the ones where they make you think you’ve just done it all perfectly.
wait for those, right?
April 15th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Mom says:
Remember when I burned Max’s foot on the stove trying to haul him to Sunday School when he was dawdling about getting ready. Those were third degree burns and look how well he turned out. Think I ever wondered if I was doing it all wrong? Now my kids are 32, 30, and 26+ and We still ask ourselves the question.
Personally, I have been amazed and humbled by the what I’ve seen in the excellent parenting of you and Becky and Kat. You are all great mothers and I speak from experience and with awe.
(Now don’t forget my birthday…)
April 16th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Leah says:
I’m not a parent, but I’m pretty sure that only the people who are 100% certain that they’re always right are the ones who are generally wrong.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:42 am
arizaphale says:
I have deliberately not read the comments so forgive me if I repeat some other sage advice but children of Emma’s age are always pushing the boundaries and if she is a little more highly strung, overly sensitive and/or intelligent than average….you will feel it. The number of times I felt like this with the BA is incalculable and the Small Boy pushes me even harder as he is not mine. But in the end, sticking to your guns and demonstrating that the world does not end if they do not ‘get their way’ is the best thing you can do.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Captain Steve says:
I’ve never seen you parent. But I have seen some people I thank God never birthed me, and you write like you act nothing like them.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Have The T-Shirt says:
I’m so glad I had two children because the second one taught me that the way the first one behaved had much more to do with nature than nurture.
Seriously, my firstborn was ‘high maintenance’ and that’s putting it lightly.
Looking back I can almost laugh at the fact that I would tie and untie and retie his shoes countless times every morning before preschool, until they were tight enough to suit the little dictator. Now it seems simple, just refuse to retie them. Back then I knew the only way to get to the next part of the day was to get us both thru the shoe tying ritual.
All I know for sure after all these years of parenting is that whether you do it all right or all wrong, kids are resilent as hell and usually turn out just fine in spite of it all.
April 16th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Dad says:
Was burning Max’s foot and running him over with my car going too far with discipline ? I’ll leave it to others to decide.
Love, Dad
April 16th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
jtj3 says:
Now, I’m not a parent so I’m not exactly qualified to answer…but I will anyway. I gotta figure if you are worried about how you’re raising your kids and whatnot then no, you’re *not* doing it wrong. I think the real problem parents are those who are absolutely, positively convinced they’re doing the right thing and won’t take any advice from anyone, under any circumstances.
Don’t be a worry wart. I’m sure your kids will turn out fine. You will screw things up now and then, that happens when you’re human. The kids will still turn out fine.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
trouble says:
First off, there is no right way to parent, and NO ONE, no one has it figured out. We’re all just faking it, Maggie darling, and the ones who seem to have it all figured out? They are faking the hardest of all.
The one thing I will say is something that has been the most helpful to me in raising my own kids. Feed the behavior you don’t, starve the behavior you don’t want. By that, I mean, don’t appease her. If she acts like this, she needs to be removed from polite society and allowed to howl until the rafters come down. She cannot be allowed to run her mama. I’m speaking from experience here. I have a daughter who at 2 was exactly as you describe. She once decided to escape from a carseat in my police car during rush hour traffic, and nothing I said or did would convince her to stay. I remember sitting in the median, scratches all over my face, after trying to rassle this child into a car seat, and thinking: “Someone is going to call the child protective people on me for abusing this child, and she’s abusing me, and there is NO ONE FOR ME TO CALL.”
We learned to not let her dominate things. She’s still a very dominant girl, and at 14 years of age, I’m glad for that, it has helped her swim against the tide of her peers more than once. But your girlie needs to know that you are boss. She doesn’t get to dictate how she is lifted out of bed.
This tactic will come in handy when they are old enough and big enough to do you physical harm, and you need to tell them: I know you are angry, but you don’t get to treat the rest of us badly because you are. Go to your room and work it out.
Please feel free to e-mail me, I am happy to listen or offer a shoulder anytime. I know how hard it is to be a mom (and how rewarding).
April 16th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
trouble says:
Sorry, that would be:
Feed the behavior you WANT, starve the behavior you don’t want.
April 16th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Baroness von Bloggenschtern says:
Whew! Everyone else above has pretty much summed up whatever advice I could possibly give. Having raised 2 rather strong-willed young men (believe you me, I’m still learning and doubting my abilities every day), I will tell you about a book I read when I was ready to tear my hair out – “The Difficult Child” by Dr. Stanley Turecki. I skimmed a great deal, but there were also some parts that at least made me feel like I was not alone in having my buttons pushed. Constantly.
April 16th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
magneto bold too says:
Sweetie, as others have said, you are only doing it wrong if you don’t second guess and doubt yourself a 100 times a day.
Smootches to you mummy.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Heather says:
Aww Maggie, people recommended “The Difficult Child” to me too. You have smart kids (and so do I). I will quote my ten year old:
Scene: the ghosts haunted house.
Girl child upon not being allowed to eat in the living room: “You are the most horrendous mother ever.”
Boy child: “Stop it! She is not. Does she hit us and call us names? Does she come home drunk from the bars?”
Dude, you’re fine. Raphael says so.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Gwen says:
I have had days like that. Less now that the demon child is almost 5 and not 3. But now my almost 8 year old has me looking at her squinty worrying about the tweens, because the stomping! and the throwing! Why can’t they just be emotionally robotic like my parents demanded of me? (I ask only half jokingly)
April 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
tysdaddy says:
Maggie,
I won’t offer any advice because I don’t really think you’re looking for anyting specific. Other than reasurance. And I can give you that. As a father, of four kids, I am sure things are different for me. Kids relate to dads differently. But I’ve seen my wife interact with them during their tantrummy moments, and all my kids are still alive, and she’s still a great mom.
So stay the course and know that whatever you decide to do will be the right next step for you and little Emma.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Lil says:
maggie, thank you. thank you for being so honest, but with perspective. thank you for giving me a glimpse into another mom’s hell. thank you for letting me know that i’m not the only one who worries and guilts and questions what this will hold for us in the future….suddenly, i don’t feel so alone (i mean it). i have abso-fucking-lutely no answers…but i got solidarity in motherhood. that rocks.
peace,
Lil
April 20th, 2008 at 11:57 am