Recently, I’ve been wondering something.
Am I emotionally regulated, or am I just really good at pretending?
The thought first struck me when I was having a particularly difficult morning. I’d had no sleep because one of my babies is mad. There was no coffee to speak of (yet). I was starting to come down with some kind of illness, and one of my maniac kids was sick, so….things were extra chaotic. Plus, we had somewhere to be that morning, ON TIME.
All roads pointed to a disaster.
But, I didn’t bite anyone’s head off! I didn’t even bite my husband’s head off! (That was later, so it doesn’t count for this story.)
On the outside of things, I was the picture of calm! It was all “of course you can have the glass with the strawberries on it” and“if you don’t feel like toast, shall I make you one of your Greek yoghurt and honey pots.”
Yes, that type of elite parenting that one feels proud of thyself for.
It wasn’t until I went upstairs that I felt quite drained from acting so….fine.
I’d been all smiles (all be it, I was a tad dead behind the eyes, but they didn’t notice.) And my husband really owed me a round of applause, given I didn’t crack in the face of his aimless wandering around while chaos unfolded.
Which made me wonder…am I …emotionally regulated…or am I just emotionally suppressed?
What’s Going On?
I don’t think the difference is always clear.
You see, as mothers, I think we strive to be emotionally regulated, but I think we may have gotten this confused with pretending we are fine.
For our kids, we always want to show up as the best versions of ourselves. We don’t want them to have to deal with adult emotions that are beyond their capacity to understand. We don’t want them to think it’s their fault when it’s not. They are just being kids coming up with the genius idea of licking toilet roll tubes and sticking them to the windows.
But I wonder if we have gotten this confused with hiding how we feel from our kids to the point that we are performing. I wonder if it allows them to see that their mums and dads are sometimes having a hard time and lets them see how they manage things in those moments. I wonder if I keep hiding how I feel, if it allows them to start exercising compassion or understanding for others.
You see, the odd thing about us as mums is, we are more than happy to show our kids when we feel happy, even if why is complex and beyond their understanding (like…a job promotion, or losing weight – not a single child has ever cared about these things ever.) Yet we hate, die, cringe at the idea of showing them that we are sad, stressed, frustrated or anything that doesn’t count as a positive feeling.
A while back, when I was looking into how to help your kids become emotionally regulated, I came across something that said we need to be ok to let our kids “sit in uncomfortable feelings.” It made complete sense when I read it because the idea was that we shouldn’t teach them to push away those emotions. We need to help them process them.
But in reality, it took some real effort to enact.
I think we all have the mummy part of us that just wants to make “bad things” go away. We want to explain away why some kid said something mean at school, so it doesn’t hurt. We want to avoid our kids ever feeling disappointed. We want to tell them they are beautiful and lovely in every way when they doubt themselves.
So, it brought me back to “am I emotionally regulated?” and I realised, I wasn’t. I wanted to show up so badly and not let them feel anything wasn’t right, that I was “pushing away” the bad things. Mostly because I was scared of burdening them or them thinking it was their fault.
But emotional regulation is about being able to respond in the way we want to and managing our reactions. It’s about doing that in the times that don’t feel great. It’s not about pretending everything is fine.
I fear the mummy inside of me may have gotten out of control and started pretending a little too much.
I think about my daughter, and I know she is going to be faced with feeling less than great some mornings when she is an adult. And I don’t think I want her to perform and then silently wish she could scream into a pillow.
The Small Rebellion
I realised, I’d accidentally fallen into the trap of pretending in front of my kids, rather than showing them what being emotionally regulated looks like (partly because it’s wildly difficult to do sometimes).
I’ve started to be more honest with them. Not in a scary way, where I explain the whole world to them, but in an honest way that allows me to model not being ok.
Maybe it’s more than ok to say things like “mummy is really tired this morning and feeling quite grumpy.” Maybe it should be encouraged for us to say things like “Mummy is feeling frustrated, and I need 10 minutes.” (Extremely doubtful I will get 10 minutes, but I’ve made my wishes known at least.)
Is it hard to do that in the morning? Yes! But I’ve found it allows me to better avoid using a snappy tone, rushing things along, and all the other things that give away the secret that I’m actually not feeling amazing in this moment!
And sure I was worried it would upset my kids, make them worry, make them think it was them, but it hasn’t. My daughter sometimes asks me why I feel the way I do, and I tell her the kid version when I can: “I didn’t get much sleep!” “I’ve got a lot of work on my list” I often tell her it’s not on her, and it’s not on her brother. It just works out that way sometimes.
And her response?
“Aww, do you want a cup of tea, mummy? Shall I help you make it?”
“Do you want a cuddle, mummy? I can give you one for energy.”
“I’ll sit next to you, mummy. Do you want some of my toast? Do you want a blanket?”
She turns up for me, the way I turn up for her. And that helps me.
And maybe I’ve helped them by giving them the gift of not being ok too.
