A Throwing Mood
Mama Mama is less advice more love letter to all of us trying to figure out this parenting thing.
Welcome to Mama Mama: a tiny alley on the internet for questions and reflections on parenting. This is less about parenting methods and more about how we can be in touch with ourselves while we care for and nurture our kids. It’s about relationships. It’s more a love letter than an advice column because honestly, you all know as much as, if not more than, I do, and mostly I am just in awe of how any of us get through with all the pressures, messaging, and systems that seem to be designed specifically to make parenting hard. This is a space for community and connection and the possibility that comes from seeing and hearing one another. Any question goes, even if it doesn’t seem explicitly connected to kids, because if it involves you and your relationship to the world, it informs how you show up with those you care for. I’m sure this space will change over time and in many ways we will make it together.
What does this have to do with puppets and podcasts? For me, play and creativity are deeply intimate and personal spaces. I get there by feeling safe and connected. That's hard to do when I feel bogged down by the weight of things. I imagine this space helping to peel back some of the layers that may keep me (you?!) from getting there more easily.
I’m so honored you are here.
Dear Mama Mama,
My four-year-old (soon to be five) seems hell-bent on doing the opposite of what I ask and laughs maniacally in the process. Sometimes it’s actually funny, but how do I impress upon him that my requests are often a matter of safety?
Love,
RB
Dear RB,
What a perfect question out of the gate for Mama Mama. Why perfect? Because you are inviting me to speak directly to what this column is about and importantly, what it is not going to be. I’m not a child development expert! I’m not a parenting expert (shout out to Abby @
for her guidance and wisdom)! I am a parent who is humbly stumbling through exactly these moments with our kids, Noah and Uma. I’m here to hear you and offer up some of the ways I work with myself in these moments. And when I say work with myself, that happens sometimes on a good day when miraculously I have slept and have enough space within myself to not just react.I feel you with this question. Every day at some point (multiple points) I feel ping-ponged between my own reactions to my kids' behaviors. The question that comes up for me is often is: how do I stay consistent when … I’m not consistent?
I’ve been a person who fancies herself as calm. And grounded. And soothing to others in distress. It has been wild to get in touch with just how reactive and, well, mad, I can feel towards tiny people who are doing just what they are supposed to be doing - testing us for reliability. In our house, our kids are allowed to be and express themselves in ways that I was never allowed to. For me, that can mean that my level of disregulation in the face of what feels like disobedience goes from 0 to 60. On some level, my nervous system is like…. how dare you (not listen to me) even if this is not how I think about things.
This morning Noah (also almost 5) was in a throwing mood. Someone probably has a more refined way of naming this mood. For him, it looks like… throwing anything and everything. It goes from playful (soft stuffie towards the couch) to wild animal (hard sculpture towards his sibling’s head) very quickly, often without time for me to catch up with what's happening.
We went through a few rounds of “I won’t let you throw, let’s try this” to no avail. And then, I yelled.* Unsurprisingly, this did not dissuade Noah from throwing and left me rather aware of just how out of control I felt. I moved my body between Noah and Uma to get some sense that I could keep them safe, in order to buy some time. I needed a minute to be with myself, to find my body again. My mind was hot and swirling; I needed the soft of my belly. It was realistically 15 seconds, but it gave me just enough to come back in a different way. This is what it looked like (and how I often end up making boundaries with my kids):
I got down on Noah’s level, eye to eye.
I got our bodies in the game by holding his hand.
I used very few words but said “it’s my job to keep you and Uma safe.”
I moved us to a different part of the room to start a new activity.
I stayed with him down on the ground for longer than I wanted to. I made sure he got a fill up of mama love - I connected to my sense of the need he was communicating through his behavior (connection! mama time! attention!).
Historically, It would be my tendency to use all the words and rehash all the points and well, feel like I couldn’t just leave it alone until I knew he got it. Unfortunately, I don’t think kids' brains work that way … maybe ours don’t either. What I knew we needed was connection, clarity, and simplicity, and to just get on with it.
Around here, words often don’t work when I need my kids to understand something quickly. This is infuriating to me because I love words and also I would prefer to say “hey, quit it” from my comfy spot on the couch and have it work. When I do get up and get down on their level, it tends to work out better.
The car ride to school, when we were both buckled into our seats (the containment of a car seat and the car in general is truly so magical, right?), included repair for yelling and a pretty open conversation where we talked about what that was like for both of us. It makes him sad when I yell. This is somewhat crushing and I am so happy he can say this to me. I don’t promise to not yell again. I do assure him that I am working on it.
Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we yell, sometimes we get lost worrying our 4 year old is a psychopath when what we need to do is draw a boundary. It’s ok. There are urgent moments of safety when all we need to do is essentially communicate NO. Otherwise, the invitation to all of us is to slow down, to use our senses to connect to something (anything) that makes a little space. It’s not perfect, it doesn’t always make things easier, but sometimes it works. And I am ok with sometimes.
XO,
MM
*Here is my confession - I’m a yeller! It’s just right there. Oh, the shame I can feel about this. A (very) regular place to practice softness for myself and to eventually get curious about what is happening in my body.
In case you’ve missed it — check out the latest from The Most:
real, small, big, tangible, connective... thank you for sharing! As a grown-up-who-went-through-a-ton-of-education-about-young-children and who also loves words, I have come so so far in letting simplicity lead the way and being able to "just get on with it."