Facing Demons: Feel the Feelings

Gabe and I don't believe in distracting Elle from her feelings.

There's definitely a place for redirection ("We're not gonna play in the trash can, but you can pull things out of the recycling"; "We're all done with chalk for now, but we can read a book when we go inside"), but if Elle is crying/scared/throwing a fit, we think it's important that she feel those feelings and process them, rather than cheer up at any cost.

To me, this goes along with the "meltdowns are not teachable moments" idea I touched on in The Riskiest Post to Date. When Elle is in the middle of big feelings, I try to hold her (if she's open to that) and say absolutely nothing, at first. I want her to know that her big feelings don't scare me, I can handle her even when she's difficult, and I'll be on the other side when she gets there too, but talking to her does nothing but contribute to overstimulation; she can't actually hear me in the moment.

After she's felt her feelings and begins to calm down, we'll either talk about what went wrong—like if she fell out of a chair, I show her why she fell and what she can do differently next time—or move on to something happier. We don't want Elle to be an adult who can't stand to be in her feelings long enough to come to peace with them and move on healthily.

Well.

Sunday night, Gabe and I got into a stupid fight after Elle went down. Afterwards, he stayed in the living room and I went upstairs to tidy up Elle's room. I walked up the steps, seething, and pulled out my phone to get a podcast going to take my mind off things.

Oh.

In the middle of Elle's room, I realized I was doing the exact thing we don't want Elle to do. Instead of sitting with my feelings and sorting through what they were trying to tell me, I wanted to drown them out with the story of someone getting murdered.

I put my phone down and sat with a sigh.

"Fine," I muttered. "What am I feeling?" I was mad, frustrated, discouraged, a little sheepish. The fight was stupid, but I could see how it had happened. I knew a podcast wasn't going to make me feel better, nor was the TV I planned to watch after cleaning Elle's room.

I picked up my phone again and texted Gabe: "Well that was a terrible way to end the weekend."

He responded with three texts in a row, honoring my side of things, owning his own, and offering to talk it through if I wanted to come down and talk. I did, so we did. None of that would have happened if I hadn't forced myself to face my feelings instead of distracting myself.

People talk about the importance of "feeling your feelings" instead of "thinking your feelings," and I'm not good at that. I don't quite understand what it means. I don't know if what I did Sunday night was feeling my feelings or thinking them, but either way, I know it was a step in a right direction. Too often I try to ignore my feelings because they're inconvenient/annoying/confusing/inevitable. I don't want Elle to do that, but if I'm going to teach her a better way, I'm gonna have to start some trial and error.

~Stephanie

How a Can of Tuna Changed My Life

When I was nineteen, I broke up with a guy over a can of tuna.

I'd been dating this guy for about a year, and we had a history that went back even farther. I loved him an unfortunate amount, but for a few months I'd been wrestling with the sense that I needed to end things. There was a maturity gap, a values gap, and a lying cavern that were all widening rather than closing up.

One day I was home from college at my parents' house hanging out with my boyfriend. I guess it was lunchtime or something and I wanted to eat but he didn't, so I just decided to have a can of tuna. I drained it over the sink, looking out into the living room where my boyfriend lay on the couch. Suddenly he sat up, glaring.

"Are you having tuna?" he asked, looking for all the world like I was preparing glass smeared with gonorrhea*.

I frowned. "Yeah? Why?"

"That's disgusting," he said. "I have to smell that. Why would you do that?"

I don't remember the specifics of what happened after that, but I remember the feeling of a puzzle piece sliding into place in my brain. It wasn't about the tuna—he's not wrong, tuna is a really strong smell and if you hate it, ew—but I suddenly saw a stark portrait of someone too selfish to be gentle, too crass to be kind. I think I probably called him out for being rude, but it didn't become a fight. The rest of the visit was unremarkable.

But later that afternoon, after he'd gone home, I was crying in the kitchen and talking to my mom and Sarah. Again, I don't remember the specifics, but I felt a certainty so unshakeable it became urgent. I needed to break up with him right then. I'd been thinking about it for months, but the tuna incident had set the decision in motion and it was gaining speed like a boulder down a mountain. I have a vague recollection of my mom...not trying to dissuade me, but wanting to make sure I was sure, because from the outside it had come on so quickly. I lived kind of far away from the guy but I knew I wanted to do this in person, so it was a not insignificant time commitment.

But I was sure.

I wrote him a letter, met him at a Starbucks, and he read the letter sitting in the passenger seat of my silver Kia Soul.

After he read it, he nodded, folded it up, and got out of the car.

We were broken up.

Technically.

It would be another nine months before it stuck. The official relationship was like most teen romances: intense, a little immature, but overall pretty healthy. However, the April through December after the breakup was a toxic cesspool of manipulation, guilt, emotional abuse, tears, ultimatums that didn't stick, false hopes, secret meetings, text fights, stomachaches, and bad decisions. One of the very last conversations we ever had was over text, and included this little gem, recreated by ChatGPT from one of my word-for-word journaling sessions.

I never spoke much about this relationship, mostly because no one ever asked me. They asked other people about it, but no one asked me what had happened or how I was. Privacy is nice, but...it does make escape from abuse kind of tricky.

I honestly don't know why I'm talking about this now, or what the point of the post is. It was inspired by a TikTok of a girl being like, "Here's an example of abuse that doesn't sound like abuse" and it reminded me of the tuna story (which I would NOT consider abuse; the TikTok just brought it to mind). I certainly don't want to cast bad juju on my ex-boyfriend. I haven't seen him in years, but I guess I hope he's happy. We both had a LOT of growing up to do and I hope he found people to support him through it like I did.

I guess the point of this post is
1) Listen to your gut when it comes to red flags. If someone berates you for eating tuna, they may also try to convince you that your beliefs are "f*cking incorrect" if inconvenient for them.

2) Remember that you never really know what someone else is going through.

~ Stephanie

*Thanks Ali Hazelwood for this metaphor that lives rent-free in my head.

Face Your Demons, or They'll Raise Your Children

A few weeks ago, Elle wouldn't stop putting food in her hair at lunch.

I asked her to stop, but she's a baby and every time she hears the word "hair"—even if it's in the sentence "Please stop touching your hair"—she touches her hair.

That's kinda on me, but I was still annoyed, so when it came time to clean her up, I wasn't particularly slow and patient as I wiped down her hair, head, and face.

After I finished, I turned my attention to her dishes but saw her hitting herself in the head out of the corner of my eye.

"Oh, baby!" I cried, instantly sad. "Be gentle to your head!"

And it hit me like a ton of bricks: she was doing to herself what she felt like I'd been doing. While I was not even close to "hitting" her in the head, that's what it felt like to her. She was copying me.

If I want her to be gentle to her head, I have to be gentle to her head.

Elle copies everything. She notices when a sock is hanging over the side of the hamper and flips it all the way into the basket, like I do. She mimics our facial expressions when we're talking at dinner. If I want her to take a drink of water, all I have to do is take a sip myself. I killed a spider with a shoe the other day, and the next thing I know she's whacking a shoe against the floor.

I saw a chilling meme the other day that said, "Face your demons, or they'll raise your children." That's the weirdest part of parenting so far. I've believed that concept for years, but it's manifesting in more (and more tangible) ways than I expected. I knew I needed to transform myself in terms of frustration intolerance, anger management, and body image, but...now I'm seeing that I need to transform myself in everything. If I don't want Elle to think/do/say/tolerate something, I can't do it either. Kids don't do what you SAY; they do what you DO. I can't just believe the talk, I have to walk the walk.

And it's like dang, faking it for her is hard enough. Now I have to change for REAL?

Fortunately, I'm sort of a self-improvement junkie. That's what this blog is all about.

Unfortunately, I am real messed up 😂 I feel a "Facing My Demons" series or something coming soon.

*raises a glass of creatine mixed with strawberry lemonade* Let's do this.

~Stephanie

In Which I Attack Some of You, Probably

I don't understand when people lie to children as a joke.

If you do that, you will probably feel uncomfortable or attacked by this post, but honestly I'm not even sorry XD I think you should stop.

"How is the baby eating in the bedroom?" asks a four-year-old girl.
"Moms make food for their babies with their breasts," someone answers.
"Yeah," someone else chimes in. "Their boobs produce sandwiches."
Everyone laughs and moves on. The girl is left confused and misinformed about how her body works.

"What does that button do?" asks a little boy as he points to the trip meter reset button in the car.
"Oh, that?" says an older brother, smirking. "That's the self-destruct button."
The joke continues for years, leading the boy to have a panic attack when someone pushes it later.

"What's that?" asks a toddler when a motorcycle drives by in the distance.
"A velociraptor," says a neighbor. "Or maybe aliens."
The toddler frowns, knowing that's probably not true, but a little tendril of fear grows in her belly and resurfaces every time she hears that sound.

Some adults do this because they think it's funny. Here is what's actually happening: they have power (knowledge, life experience, an understanding of irony and sarcasm), and they're using it to abuse someone weaker (uninformed, innocent, still learning social rules).

When is that ever funny? Does it make you feel clever to perform for other adults nearby at the expense of a child? Do you feel smarter when you exploit the ignorance of someone a quarter your age? Do you feel powerful when a little person comes to you for help understanding the world and you make them the butt of a joke instead?

"Oh come on," you say. "It's not that serious. They're gonna have to learn about humor sometime."

Yeah, absolutely. In general, humor is a natural development. Once kids know how the world does work, they'll recognize the irony and sarcasm in hearing jokes about how it doesn't.

But you're not helping them develop that skill when you lie to them for funzies. Instead, you teach them that you're not trustworthy. You teach them that adults are there to mock them, not help them. You teach them that they don't speak the language everyone else does, but without offering to translate. The child will have to filter everything you say through the lens of "this might be a joke...he might be making fun of me...that might not be real..." The child will watch you say something and smirk at the people around you, and maybe she'll smile hopefully, trying to be part of what's happening, but she still doesn't know the truth.

The joke might never come up again, or the child might go on to have a panic attack. He might still choose to trust you later, but it will always come with a pit in his stomach as he takes the gamble.

Lying to a child as a joke is such a weak, cowardly, mean form of humor to me. Like, congratulations, you lied to someone who doesn't know any better? Do you also do their 5-piece peg puzzles faster than them and say, "HA HA"?

Do better with your knowledge. Do better with your experience. If there's an innocence-exploiting zinger just absolutely burning a hole in your brain, go ahead and make the joke, I guess, but at least circle back to tell the child the truth. Don't make them a prop for your stand-up routine.

Whew. We haven't heard from the Eight version of Stephanie in a while. I'm glad to know she's still here, and glad she has an ENFJ cohost for the day-to-day.

~Stephanie

P.S. I know the image isn't of a velociraptor, but it fits the color scheme of the blog 😂

Toddler Talk: Rewiring My Brain

One of the trends in millennial parenting is reframing the way we speak. In a lot of ways, I find the practice overwhelming and...overcomplicated. Don't tell your kids you're proud of them, because that teaches them to seek external validation. Don't tell your daughters they're pretty, because that might suggest their value lies in their looks. Don't tell them what NOT to do, because toddler brains have trouble interpreting negatives. Instead, say "You must be so proud of yourself," tell your daughters they're brave and smart, and tell toddlers what you WANT them to do instead.

I happen to believe in most of the suggested linguistic changes. The theories are backed by neuroscience and behavioral therapists.

However, there are simply too many things to keep track of as a parent. I cannot be mentally diagramming a sentence or putting it through Mr. Rogers' nine rules of speaking to children every time I need to reign in the chaos of breakfast. (I mean, I do try, and it's getting faster and easier, but...come on.)

Instead of doing an entire syntax extreme makeover, I've decided to focus on two changes: 1) stating what I want Elle TO do instead of what I want her NOT to do, and—the one I really want to talk about here— 2) being very intentional about the words "want" versus "need."

I don't know when I first noticed it, but there's a lot of misuse of "need" going around, especially when it comes to kids. It's not "Do you need more raspberries?" it's "Do you want more raspberries?" It's not "Do you need to hold the pretty necklace?" it's "Do you want to hold the pretty necklace?" Conflating the words isn't just confusing to someone learning language for the first time, I think it might be harmful to the person's mind, maybe even her soul.

Every day we're tricked into thinking we need something that we just want. There are real needs, like food, water, air, medicine, community, God, but we don't need to stop and get food just because we're hungry and we're out, or redo the entire bathroom because we had to replace the countertop, or buy a brand new dress because we're going to a wedding.

But even less obvious, I don't NEED Elle to let go of my hand so that I can do the dishes. I WANT Elle to let go of my hand because I WANT to do the dishes right now. The sentence goes from "Mama needs you to let go of her hand" to "Mama wants to use both hands to do the dishes."

"Needs" are vital, desperate, not particularly open to negotiation. That is not the way I want my daughter—or myself—to view life. "Wants" are choices: they return our power to us; they acknowledge that our desire is within our own boundaries. If I say that I WANT to use both hands to do the dishes, I am recognizing that it's a desire that comes from ME, not a need that must be met by someone else. In fact, I can choose to prioritize something else over my desire. I can decide that it is more important to honor Elle's craving for affection right now than it is to get the dishes done right away.

Stating things as "wants" helps me to hear what's really going on. When I say, "Mama wants to get dressed so we can leave" instead of "Mama needs to get dressed," I hear that being on time is important to me—but it isn't a need. I have the privilege of choosing punctuality for something that I want to do. The situation becomes a gift instead of a burden. It is within my power to decide do something, and within my power to prioritize being on time, and within my power to put Elle down and get dressed to make it happen. All of those are MY choices, none of them are imperatives, and none of them are Elle's problem to manage.

If we're running late, it's not because Elle made a mess at breakfast or acted like a rabid ferret when I tried to put her clothes on; it's because I chose to give her yogurt and only allot five minutes for getting her dressed. I don't NEED her to cooperate with me; I WANT her to, and I want to raise her in a way that makes her truly aware of the difference. We can achieve needs as a team, sure, but there's something sweeter and more intimate about achieving wants together. There's less pressure, less guilt, more joy.

At least that's the hope. And even if using want/need appropriately does nothing for Elle's brain, it's doing a whole lot for mine.

~Stephanie