Emma has been viral with hand foot and mouth, and while wildly contagious she has been in good spirits. She’s stayed home with dad which she loves because she gets to watch tv (in the afternoon, for an hour or two, depending on how tired I’ve been).
on the fourth day, a Thursday, while descending the stairs, and feeling overextended with the daughter’s whining about some thing or the other, I told her with a good dose of vitriol, “if you keep doing this I’ll smash your head into that wall,” which is the cruelest thing I’ve ever said by a good country mile, way past the general calm (albeit forced) way I generally address her boundary pushing, and surprised me, like a threshold being crossed. and Emma rightfully responded, daddy that’s not nice! and I explained that her present manner of speaking was driving daddy to be very upset and required changing.
parenthood is an exercise in defining thresholds until they are broken, and setting new ones. I recall before the children were born, being on a beach somewhere and seeing a young girl pulling hard on the leash of a midsized dog, and being struck by the violence in the act. I think my dog was barely past being a puppy by that point, and I’d never been so rough with him, but some time later I was pulling my dog the same way on walks, with increasing violence, as he became an outlet for the stress I was experiencing as a new father, or husband, or householder. it was as if the girl introduced the idea that I could be violent, which previous to the experience had been unthinkable.
and similarly with the children I notice how the various interactions increase in severity, as new thresholds are established and crossed. and this week being a full time parent to one high-energy four year old I found myself in various fits of anger, to one point squeezing her little head against my chest while she cried about some unmemorable thing, releasing a bit of my frustration.
and I think the frustration comes from a poor setting of boundaries. Emma to her credit only wants to be closer when she feels me pull away, and even in her fits of anger only wants to remove the problem so we can be close again. I have to remind myself that speaking the feeling helps release it, regardless of how vile the thing might be. and similarly for her, when she wants to whine or lash out or hit, I must exhort her to use words to express the anger, because that seems to be the best course of action.
