This past Thursday I was passing through Vienna Internat'l Airport towards my transfer flight to Copenhagen. I had forgotten that I had been there a few years earlier until my eyes met something that caused me to remember.
Psychics claim that certain places inhabit energy from memories of actions which have occurred in the past. So when I saw a row of seats across from the Swatch boutique, I stopped dead in my tracks. The last time I had been there I witnessed an overstressed and probably sleep deprived mother who saw no other way to quiet her hysterical 3-year-old son other than to start dealing out slaps across his face. All this while his older sister, who was maybe five, looked on in silence. I approached her and picked up her son and told her that she needed to calm down; that her type of behavior is illegal and could get her arrested. Flustered, she explained that she needed to get her son to calm down. I told her that I could help her; I asked her where she was heading and that I could help follow her and her children to whatever gate they needed to go to.
She wouldn't accept my offer, and since she had snapped out of her anger, I gave her her son back. As she walked off holding his hand; I said a silent prayer that that kind of behavior wasn't an ongoing thing. Because that's what I always fear when I hear children crying: that their parents are going to lose it and take their frustration out on them.
So there I was, at the exact same place again years later, and still my stomach had turned to ice. Earlier that week I had spent a lot more time than usual by myself in my hotel room. Not really feeling like flipping through what I'm sure must have been a potpourri of fantastic Cypriotic TV-channels, I used the silence to reflect upon how my heart could bleed for all the world's children, yet at the same time I all too often expect too much from my own two babies. Not that I would ever lay a hand on them (which is strictly illegal in Sweden, and wouldn't it be nice if the U.S.A. at some point could pass a similar law?!), but I snap at them too often, too easily. Usually because they don't realize how much energy and skill it requires to keep all our damned hamster wheels in motion.
And now it's becoming more and more evident to me: So what if the hamster wheel slows down? or even stops? Is it worth getting irritated with them just because we might be five minutes late? Is it unnatural that they try to get by doing the bare minimum just because they don't share my standards as far as housekeeping goes?
Already on my flight to Vienna I vowed that it was time for me to improve my behavior starting immediately. I would stop choosing irritation as a FIRST reaction to whatever my children would do. Then seeing those seats in the terminal only reinforced that decision. And as though Karma was really trying to drive the point home, as I climbed on my elliptical crosstrainer this morning, I tuned into Dr. Phil, and of course the subject was "Angry Moms".
Just so no one gets the wrong idea, I utterly adore my children, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job raising them together with my husband. I can happily say that we are a happy and extremely fortunate family. But still, there's always room for development and this is one thorn I want to try to remove for good. And what better way to do that than to go public and expose my shortcomings?
The past two days have gone really, really well I might add!
No comments:
Post a Comment