Here’s a dark and somewhat dirty secret . . .

Moms yell.

We do

It’s not something we choose to display on social media.

It’s not something we want on our parenting resumes.

It remains tucked away because there’s shame attached to it. After all, other moms don’t raise their voices and completely lose it with their kids. Right??

Well, turns out they do.

And I’m one of them.

When I had two little people in diapers, when I was short on sleep and long on to-dos, when nothing ever got checked off the list, when there was always another load of laundry to do and more groceries to put away, when someone needed my attention 24×7 . . . I resorted to yelling.

It wasn’t something I planned. No parent ever thinks to themselves: “I’m going to be unreasonably angry and raise my voice at my littles. Now, that’s a foolproof parenting strategy if there ever was one!”

No, the yelling just sort of happened. Before I knew it, there would be a Mount Mama explosion that would hit window-shattering decibel levels, leaving my stunned children wide-eyed and disbelieving.

No one would have ever suspected I had these uncontained outbursts. In company and during playdates, I was a picture of composure. But there were those moments when my buttons were pushed in the exact right sequence—it was like a nuke had been detonated, and I couldn’t hold back the spew of angry words.

What made me lose my cool? Was it just that my little people had dumped Cheerios on the carpet right after I’d vacuumed—or did it run deeper?

The more I think about it, I know I yelled because I somehow thought their actions were a referendum on my parenting. I saw my children as walking billboards—mini advertisements—of how I was doing as a parent.

If my house was a mess or if we showed up late to an event or if I didn’t have a real meal prepped or if the laundry didn’t get put away and we had to dig through the hamper for clean undies, then I had failed as a parent. That was the story I told myself. And it was a debilitating story.

 

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This article first appeared on Her View From Home

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