When I first read this article, I felt guilty and horrible, because I do yell at my kids. It tends to happen when they ignore me, or, most notably, at bed time, when my son and I have nightly screaming matches that escalate faster than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Mind you, I don’t feel good about it. Most nights, my son and I are usually both in tears. But there’s really only so many times that he can yell, “mommy, one more thing,” as I’m walking away from his room before I completely lose my s---. But oh, to see those words in print – “damaging to well-being and self-esteem,” “risk factor for a family” – it certainly hit me where it hurts.
And yet, after thinking about it for a few minutes, I stopped feeling guilty, and I started to feel really, really pissed off. I mean, yeah, I yell at my kids. We all do. And anyone who says they don’t is either lying or heavily, heavily medicated. Of course, I don’t verbally abuse my children. I never say mean or disparaging things to them. But yes, when I am irritable, anxious, or just plain mad because my kids do not listen to me, then I raise my voice. And you know something? I think its okay. I think those psychologists at their Centers for Being Perfect and Non-Human Parents can go f*** themselves. Really. Because what I’ve realized, is that my goal as a parent is not to raise my children without any distress whatsoever. No. My goal as a parent is to do the best that I can, and to accept that sometimes, I am going to cause my children distress. I try not to yell, but sometimes, I’m going to yell. I’m human, for God’s sake, and children, on occasion, can be really freaking irritating. There’s a reason they say it takes a village to raise them; it’s so that when your kid is being annoying, you can pass him off to someone else for a little while so that you can go get a massage. But unfortunately, I don’t live in a village. I live in a city, in a house, with a husband who plays softball two nights a week and on Saturday mornings, and I defy any one of those psychologists quoted in that article to come over here one night and try putting my son to bed without bursting a blood vessel.
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Risa Green, author of Tales from the Mommy Track on MommyTracked.com, lives in Los Angeles. In the last four years, she has produced two children, called Harper and Davis, and two novels, called Notes from the Underbelly and Tales from the Crib. Her third novel will be published next year.
