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 Trauma-Mama By Clarissa Worley Sproul
Well, in defense of my inexperienced perspective, I have decided to defend one piece of advice I give out all the time. The actual advice runs like this. Whether toddler Tommy has a) fallen on his face and busted his lip open, b) painted the carpet red with food coloring, or c) is continuing to cry over that candy those conniving store people stocked a foot off the ground in the "family-friendly" check-out isle; no matter what, do not be ruffled, do not freak, and do not make it a huge deal. Instead, relax, address the situation with a few calm words that make sense and move on, because, well, specifically speaking, a) falling is part of walking and scrapes are part of being human, and b) on your death-bed the red carpet stains won’t matter at all, and c) wanting something yummy is not a crime—especially if you’ve seen very happy people eating it on T.V. way, way, way, way too many times. The principle behind such advice is simple. Life will be as traumatic for your kids as you make it. If you make a big deal out of falling down, your kid will fear falling down, not because the actual event was so catastrophic, no, because your reaction was scary. Likewise, if you fly off the handle into negative airspace because your kid found that neat colored stuff and figured out how to spread it all over for all to see and share in its beauty, he’ll fear doing expansive creative things—not because color on carpet is emotionally devastating, but because your emotions quite freaked him out and made absolutely no sense at all. I can just hear his little mind ticking... this is beautiful—wow—I wish there was more of—uh, uh-oh, something is really wrong, look at mommy’s face, oh-no, is she going to be OK? Will she survive? Yes, even all that crying for candy in the check-out isle, well, that’s not going to scar anyone either. Tommy can cry about that candy, and with no adverse effects on himself whatsoever. Not getting an object of desire is part of life on earth—he might as well learn how to grieve, too. But your angry stop it and your dark scowls, well that is something that will adversely impact Tommy for possibly years to come, because your intensity is definitely somewhere between terrifying and traumatic. Think about it for a minute. It is not the actual events in our lives that shape us so much as it is the way our role models react or deal with those events. Painful events are not devastating; they are inevitable. People in pain who act devastated however, now that can be devastating (though acting devastated, for the record, is not inevitable). The same goes for mistakes. We will all make mistakes and will our whole lives long. No problem there either. Apologizing works, forgiving works, picking up the pieces and doing the best you can works too. Mistakes can’t crush the soul. Mistakes are mostly manageable. And the only reason any of us believe otherwise is because we have been (wrongly) taught or shown that mistakes have the power to ruin life and rob joy. If daddy flies into a rage because of my mistakes well then yes, mistakes are going to take on a new and traumatic meaning. What I’m trying to say here is that negative experiences don’t have to be traumatic unless we are taught they are. Yep, and parents are the privileged ones who get to teach such things. So how you relate to the mishaps in your life will teach your future descendents not just how they should relate to theirs, but ultimately whether or not such mishaps have the power to overcome us. I once knew a mother of three, and I actually have her to thank for my understandings in this area. She took in every negative happenstance like it was a huge, huge deal. Muddy shoes---bad, bad BAD! Mud on the carpet—WHAT?! It could be as normal a thing as her daughter spilling off a bike or her other daughter wrestling a classmate, or whatever, BUT LOOK OUT! THIS WAS SERIOUS BUSINESS! In the privacy of my mind I nicknamed her Trauma-Mama. And in actuality, I owe her much. She taught me how I didn’t want to be as a parent because she forced me to recognize how traumatic her emotional responses were on the psyches of her children. And fortunately for my (yet to be birthed) kids, I took careful notes. Visit Life Notes ______________________________ Clarissa Worley Sproul writes from the Pacific Northwest. All rights reserved © 2010 AnswersForMe.org. Click here for content usage information. Add your comment. |
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