Danger!!

My youngest, at age 9, has an emotional IQ exceeding that of most adults. We were working on a Word Search puzzle together, (theme: Adjectives). He assigned me words that he deemed aligned with his mother: big, scary, old, dangerous. When I asked about the last one, he said that I am dangerous because I “hurt people.” I asked for clarification, and we had the following exchange:

E: You hurt people’s feelings.

Me: Do other people in this house hurt people’s feelings?

E: Only O (his big brother).

Me: What about Daddy?

E: Daddy fixes feelings.

Oh, does he now?!?! What a miracle worker Daddy is! Aren’t we lucky to have him! I guess you’re not aware, little one, that Mommy’s feelings have been crushed by daddy. Crushed, I tell you.

Well, I didn’t tell him. I maintained a flat affect (okay, my right eyebrow may have raised just slightly and betrayed my incredulity), and I did not respond. As “scary”, “dangerous”, (and “old?”) as mommy is perceived to be, I kept that diatribe to myself.

As it always happens, my tender boy reflects his reality back to me, and I feel remorse at the weighty realization that all that I feel, my children feel. I don’t remember if it was something a therapist said, or if it was written in a book I read, but at some point I became aware of this fact: Our children carry our emotions. They carry them, like burdens, like supportive tools, like companions. As parents, we need to be very careful about what we are handing them. For years, my boys have been holding onto my sadness, my frustration, my anger, my feelings of inadequacy. Likewise, as a child (my dad walked out when I was 3’ish, after having had an affair for several years, which continued...I'm digressing, but you get the point), I carried my mom’s loneliness, her unhappiness, her experience of being hard done by. They are still tucked away in me (despite her finding love again at age 50 and having had a happy, fulfilling life for the past 40 years).

E's observation is bang-on. I’ve been so irritable. Some irritability is certainly my baseline. I come by it honestly. My dad did not suffer fools gladly, and made no secret of being annoyed. Yet, over the past few years, the agitation and general sense of “grrrrrrr!” has magnified. I believe it’s tied in with unmet expectations: Expecting to spend time together as a family; expecting to spend time together as a couple; genuinely feeling interesting to my partner, loved, respected, supported; feeling like a partner, rather than companion; being greeted when I walk in a room; being looked at; being seen. Those expectations….they’re really needs. Needs that have gone unmet for years which resulted in so much internal conflict that it spilled out in the form of irritability….which my little guy perceived as “dangerous.”

I will do better. In finding and creating joy for myself, I will be able to infuse my boys with it. I will do this by ending these expectations I’ve had of my marriage, and by creating new expectations that I, myself, can fulfill for myself and my children.