Embarassment & shame, past and present
I took this shot at the playground yesterday. Noah and I are really enjoying the slide, swings, and bouncy things there. Unfortunately I got the bright idea to take him down the big big slide on my lap and forgot to check the top of the slide - resulting in a wet butt.
It’s been 25 years since I tied my jacket around my waist to hide a wet-slide-butt, but I did, with all the feelings of 10 year old shame coming back: recesses spent scraping dog poo off my shoe prior to notes going around about the smell. I had a rush of little system-kids through my brain, all babbling about their bad playground memories. It’s really the first time that anything we’ve done with Noah has triggered that kind of thing - the past rising up into the present in such a visceral way, wet jeans and checking my shoes a few times. And it was fine. I just sat on a bench and let it happen before parcelling Noah up and continuing to the library.
Because I figured as a mum, wet jeans were like a badge of involvement, if not foresight. :) I shared this story with my playgroup today and we laughed and laughed.
And then Noah bit (!! he hasn’t done that in ages) a kid, enough that one tooth went through the skin. I felt awful and then the real shame and embarassment hit and we left pretty fast.
I’m not sure I handled it well; in fact I’m pretty sure I didn’t - I scooped up the other kid and fussed and helped wash his arm (lifeguard on deck), but I didn’t reprimand Noah right then, and thus lost the moment. It simply wasn’t where my mind was at, at all. I think that may have bothered the other mums, but I’m not sure. We don’t have the group next week, so I’ll find out the week after (although I’ll call the kid’s mum that Noah bit, to check up on him.)
I did know Noah was tired, grumpy, and teething, but he was also playing pretty happily. From what I saw he didn’t bite out of frustration but just because a yummy looking arm came into view, but who knows what was going on in his mind? Next time even if I am having the mental break/fun of a lifetime (which I was, after this hellish week) I’ll just leave a little earlier. Because that was what would have prevented it, I think - when he gets tired right now because of those molars, he does start sinking his teeth into inanimate things. I just didn’t think he’d pick an arm.
And of course I’ll also keep working with him when he does bite, if he does, but I’m still a little stumped. This is a hard age that way: he needs redirection and some good boundaries and an alternative to biting (one of the other kids hugs agressively and kisses *hard*), but other than that kind of shaping I don’t have a lot in my bag of tricks.
I don’t believe in hitting or biting him; I don’t believe he would absorb much from a time out (and although I think time outs are good to calm down and for some specific things, and this one might qualify later one, I don’t really believe in them as a discpline-of-all-things despite all the Nanny-whatever shows). I know there’s no way to reason with him. I do wish I’d told him no severely right there though, because he does absorb it. I taught him to stop biting me in a day and he hasn’t bitten me since, but I can’t really borrow a kid for the same purpose.
Anyways then I left playgroup and he fell asleep in the car in about three minutes, so I drove through a drive-through for coffee and then over to visit with Emily. I find that is often my touchstone about parenting: it’s kind of an instant perspective-shifter, for me. Not in the sense of “oh I should let this biting thing go because at least Noah’s not dead” - I don’t think that does anyone a service - but in terms of remembering what’s important. It may be that I get kicked out of playgroup, but it’s not about me, not that way anyway. At the end of the day (I’m going to get kicked for using this phrase ;)) the question is did I do my best for Noah and for me and for people around us. I think my response was less than ideal active parenting, but good modelling - if someone’s hurt, help them! And that is me. I’m not someone who’s ever going to discipline first if blood is on the ground. I think it’ll be okay.
But it shocked me how shamed I felt by something Noah did (or rather, to be brutally honest, how it reflected on me as a mother). I have been the eccentric one almost my whole life, and I really thought that when it came to parenting I would at least have that going for me, a certain amount of fuck you around which to raise ramparts against that weird thing where mums treat their kids like they are proof of their goodness or hard work or something. Where I’d be able to laugh off the crazy things kids do (’cause they do) and not get my ego involved, and then leave that space for Noah. I do think part of my job is to keep him safe, help him develop empathy and respect for others, and steward him such that he develops true discipline - a moral compass for himself. And to socialize him on weird cultural quirks like salad forks and napkins and things. But for him, not to prevent embarassment for me.
I suppose I have an ideal in my mind that if embarassment were the price for something that is right for Noah, I would just sail through it.
I should have seen that this hasn’t been the case all along - joining playgroups, getting into the right classes, etc. - but the depth of my - well - stupid high-school level embarassment and concern that the other mums won’t like me anymore, like I dated the wrong boy or something - embarasses me. Because it was exactly that feeling that Noah bit and boo hoo now I’m the outsider.
But standing in the cemetary I saw that yes, that’s me. But if I breathe and centre I can be both that me - the one that is probably going to do backflips to try to stay in the playgroup - and the one that doesn’t then do something to Noah just for show, like a smack or a bite.
(One of the other mums did actually suggest biting him instead; apparently this works really well. I’m sure it does but it doesn’t meet my criteria of “leaving my dignity and the child’s dignity intact” - a philosophy cribbed from Barbara Coloroso and which I would violate if I were, say, teaching Noah not to run in the road in front of cars, but I can’t see doing as a lesson in not biting people.)
And now, here is the weird part. I think I mentioned before (I am too tired to go look and link) that I had put a little gong-thing over Emily’s grave so it would be there to ring. It’s stayed all summer, to my surprise ’cause it’s sort of one of those really stealable items. But I guess the lawnmower got too close to it at some point recently because when I got there today it looked like this. (I took this picture just now, cause I brought it home)
Bite marks and all.
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4 Responses to “Embarassment & shame, past and present”
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looks like a happy cutie pie!
dont sweat the small stuff came to mind as i read this but i realize sometimes thats near impossible to do. (lazy caps tonight!). sometimes there is nothing more judgmental than a pack of moms (who were all most likely saying to themselves “thank god that wasnt my kid this time!)!
you are totally right in not biting him back. it shows that its ok to hurt someone if its getting a point across. he had a lapse, he is a baby they all do. and yes it was goo modeling to show him that because of his actions mommy had to take care of a hurt kid. we help hurt people. sure you could have thrown in a stern no noah but would that have helped the other kid at all?
and if the playgroup is that messed up that it wouldpossibly jeopardize your play group time then they are dolts and prolly not the best group to have influence your child.
hugs
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