I recently came across a post on Facebook. I have seen many others like it–a mother behaved poorly and felt regret and then told their audience “this is okay, this is normal, this is part of motherhood.”

I’m a mother. Knowing you have made mistakes and have regrets resonates with me as well. However, this post was unlike any others I have seen. It left me sick to my stomach and even more so when I saw that others agreed with it, because it was blatantly abusive. A young toddler was tugging on his mother’s leg when she screamed, “Please leave me alone! Just let me wash the f’#&*$*# dishes” and threw the glass dish in the sink. Of course the child cried at the outburst, and then this mother pulled the child in close, seemingly telling him that this was all okay, the way she treated, him. She may be cruel, but she would still be there.

Look, I get that as mothers we are not perfect. We are learning. It is incredibly hard. I believe it is meant to be hard, because it is only through hard things we grow, but when we excuse, dismiss, justify or normalize poor behavior, we are not growing and we are also teaching the next generation how to acceptably behave poorly. Often times the way we show them how to do that is misplacing blame, and laying the blame at our children’s feet. It is their fault for not listening, being annoying or not doing their best. When someone else isn’t acting their best, doesn’t that justify our own poor behavior?

No! No, it does not.

Mistakes happen in motherhood. That is absolutely true. Every mother who has ever walked this earth has made mistakes. I have made mistakes. I have talked harshly to my children. I have blamed a child when something was not their fault out of frustration. I have said words and acted in ways that I wished to take back, but could not. And that is the reality, we cannot take back the mistakes we make. We cannot change the past, but we can look forward and work on ourselves for the future.

Mothers (and fathers), there are times when we are 100% behaving inappropriately. When we are stressed and have crossed our threshold, and we unleash that struggle on our children–that is wrong. I would venture to say, that our behavior is even abusive at times. We avoid that word because it conjures up images of CPS taking our children away, but if we are not honest about our poor behavior, we cannot change it. If you are damaging another person through your words, behavior or physical touch, you are being abusive. Period!

What do I wish the post would have said at the end? “I screwed up. I messed up big time. I have got to do better. I love my child, they do not deserve to be treated that way. What I did is not okay!” Instead, the post ended with, the message that this doesn’t make me a bad mom, this is okay, this is normal, this is motherhood. I agree that making a mistake does not make one a bad person. We are not indefinitely defined by a singular behavior, but it does make them someone who needs to apologize and improve their behavior. I wish the mother would have said, “I apologized to my child, even though I don’t know if he was old enough to understand it. I told him what I did was wrong and vowed to do better. I told him that he does not deserve to be treated that way and I will do better. This is not the mother I am going to choose to be.”

Still, that is easier said then done. How do we do better? This is a struggle I am constantly having. Even as I make improvements, I gain awareness of other areas in which I need to do better.

Here are a few things you can do

Manage Stress

Parenting and adulthood is hard. There are so many things and people and events pulling for our attention. It can feel overwhelming. Parenthood, and all the expectations that go with it can feel especially overwhelming. We have to do better at managing our stress. If you really don’t know how to manage your stress, you might greatly benefit from getting some help from a counselor or a life coach in implementing some effective strategies that will work for you. Maybe it is meditating, praying, having quiet time, going on a walk, or participating in a hobby you enjoy. You are an adult, you need to work on implementing effective strategies so you can stop yourself before you hit that out of control wall where you are doing things that you regret.

Simplify

Because we live in a world that is so “advanced” our lives seem to be very complicated. Our children need to be number one, they need to read when they are four, dress well, act proper, make the team and play the piano… and, and, and, and. As parents we seem to feel the need to run children to every activity, look put together, make money, be “fulfilled,” smile and look happy the whole time and share our perfection with others.  Listen, life should not be complicated. Life is not complicated. The things that matter in life are simple–that our own and our children’s physical, mental and emotional needs are cared for. Sadly, the simple and most important things in life often get buried in the unimportant as we are running to the next activity that will hopefully make our child a prodigy or mastering the next cake decorating skill we saw on Pinterest or working towards the next promotion.

Be Honest With and Work on Yourself

As a child. I thought adults had it together and knew everything. There is truth to the saying, “The older you get, the less you know.” As you get older, you recognize how very much you have left to learn. If we want to improve, we have to be honest with ourselves about the areas in which we have deficiencies (and we all have deficiencies). It’s painful to look at those areas, it’s painful to admit to our weaknesses, but it is also essential to identify them. This is how we grow. We stunt our growth when we are in denial. Find the help you need, find the resources you can learn from. We have no excuse in this age of information.

JUST STOP

When you get to that out-of-control place, recognize it and just stop. Stop what you are doing. Stop what you are saying. Look into your children’s face and see what your behavior is doing to them. Leave the situation and go somewhere alone if you need to. Do whatever you need to do to stop. The really great thing about exerting this high degree of self-control is that it will actually slowly change your automatic response.

Continual and unapologetic cruel behavior to our children creates depression, anger, anxiety, acting out and on, and then after we have acted our worst, we wonder what is wrong with our children when they mimic our behavior. Much of the time our children are simply modeling what they see, they are modeling us.

So mom or dad, next time you screw up, don’t tell yourself it’s okay, don’t justify your mistake away or worst of all, blame your children for it. Identify your mistake, apologize for your mistake and then work on fixing your mistake by changing. If you aren’t sure where to start, ask your kids. They are acute observers and when they see that you are strong enough to admit you are wrong and work to fix it, you will serve as a powerful example of what real strength looks like.