it ain't a perfect world
originally published Dec 4, 2015
We get in bad moods, things go wrong, our kids misbehave. The juice spills, the bills come, people offend us. Every day.
We enter into foray with our family members in the name of justice. We want to make them mind, make them reasonable, make them act in ways that don't displease us.
And we become unreasonable and mean. We're reduced to yelling. Because we know that's always helpful.
Wait, what?
I can count on zero fingers how many times yelling has been helpful in a relational situation.
I didn't mean to yell.
I mean, none of us did, really. None of us entered parenthood thinking that yelling would be an effective means of transmitting our moral standards to our children with integrity.
"Here's my plan for raising children. I'll get up in the morning, after being awake with the baby, and I'll grouse around for forty-five minutes, snarking at the children to get up and get ready for their day until everybody is in a bad mood. When my child starts to have attitude with me, I'll hit the roof. When they bicker, I'll yell."
Nope. That isn't what we planned.
But some days, it is what happens. 'Cause it ain't a perfect world.
What went wrong? What's the hard thing here? Why am I doing what I don't want to be doing?
