The Sorry State of Sorry

It's so hard to apologize. It's so easy to get angry, to blow the slightest wrongdoing way out of proportion, and to hold onto that anger. I do it, my kids do it, and I really think that the most valuable lesson I can teach them (okay, my most valuable lesson du jour) is how to let go of anger.

One child trips over his brother's foot and gets angry.

"You made me fall!"
"But I didn't do it on purpose"
"Yes you did"
"No I didn't"
"You always try to hurt me. I hate you!"
"But it was an accident"

and on and on until both brothers are angry with each other, perhaps both have managed to hit each other, both are crying, and one is running to Mommy to punish the other for hitting. It really doesn't take long to descend to this level, and then I have to put them in their separate corners (chairs in the living room) and talk to them calmly.

Other times, the conversation goes like this:
Me: "Why the hell can't you put your bowl in the dishwasher! It's right next to the sink."
Husband: "The dishwasher was full of clean dishes"
Me: "And of course it's my job to empty it"
Husband: "I was running late"
Me: "You had time to sit and read the whole sports section before you were suddenly running late. You always do this!"

Okay, so this conversation usually just goes on in my head in the morning, when I see the bowl in the sink that my husband left in there before he headed off for his 7am shift. Sometimes it's after I've returned home after dropping off the kids at school, while I am actively avoiding getting any work done. But that doesn't mean I want to spend my break doing dishes. I mean, I've been teaching my kids that I'm not their maid, that they should help out around the house, and my husband is totally undermining my lessons by leaving his bowl - with dried, crusty, cereal bits in it (couldn't he at least fill the damn bowl with water!) - sitting out for me to clean up. By the time he gets home, I'm stewing. He's gone this long without apologizing, and he doesn't even come in repentant. It's outrageous! Unforgivable. And so I explode. This anger has been building up inside of me all day, and I lose it. Sure, to you it's just a bowl, but to me, it's become a symbol of oppression, of all the hardships I've had to bear - nay, that all women have had to bear - at the hands of men, in this Man's World. Oh, the injustice. And sure, we could dismiss this minor misgiving as just that, or we could take a stand.

So I wait until he says something, anything, and let him have it.

In other words, I go a little overboard. Just a tad.

Now, this isn't to say that there aren't times when he is at fault. But either way, I'd like to think that one of the reasons our marriage works is that we're willing to apologize. Yes, we can both get hot-headed. And usually, the word "Always" is my clue that we're going a bit too far, and that it's time to shut up.

Generalizations don't help. I can always find examples to back up my generalizations, but that involves actively ignoring the examples that clearly contradict my statements. And the other person really cannot defend him/herself by pointing out the incidents when my statement is not true. Because once I'm in generalization mode, I'm not listening. Pointing out why my statement is fault means the other person is just trying to contradict me and never listens.

And this is why I make my kids sit down and calm down a little bit before we talk it out. Growing up, I would be sent to my room to calm down before my parents would even discuss my problems. When I first got married, my husband hated when I gave him "the silent treatment," which is when I would calm myself down before discussing rationally what was bothering me. So now I'm at a cross-roads. I want to get back to that point, to get my kids to that point, so that we don't say things we will later regret. This doesn't mean we just push down our anger and bury our grievances, rather that we can clear the air in a productive manner.

So I sit down with my boys and give each one a turn to tell me what happened. I voice, for them, the other person's point of view, and make sure they are looking at the situation from all sides.

And then they apologize.

"But I didn't knock him down on purpose."

It always starts with that. And so I ask him,
"Did he get hurt?"
"Yes"
"Did you contribute - accidentally - to his getting hurt?"
"Yes"
"Are you glad he got hurt, or do you wish he didn't?"
"Wish he didn't"
"Are you sorry that he got hurt?"
"Yes"

Empathy without admission. Certainly an apology like that is palatable.

"And you," I say to his brother, "You accused him of pushing you down, of trying to hurt you."
I remind him of how much his brother cares for him, of how much he loves him (ideally coming up with some recent example of when they were nice to each other), and then ask him to apologize for accusing his brother of purposefully hurting him. Because it's not just actions that hurt others, but thoughts and words as well.

I don't expect my boys to take the blame for things they didn't do, but I want to teach them empathy.

"I'm sorry that you feel that way"
"I'm sorry I made you feel that way"
"I'm sorry this is bothering you so much"
"I'm sorry you got hurt"

I don't know if this is the best way to do so, but it can't hurt. I also want them to learn that it's okay to apologize. Just pretending everything is all right doesn't make things better, it makes things fester. Unless resolved, the same grievances will be remembered for a long time, coming up the next time that person who wronged you long ago wrongs you again.

I've got a lot going on in my life. Plenty of things that could stress me out, so that I'm stretched out so thin that I lose control and the slightest provocation. But that's not helpful. Nonetheless, I do find myself yelling at the kids more than I'd like. Oftentimes, usually, it's because I hate being late, and when my kids dawdle and we leave the house late, I perceive their actions - their delay tactics - as a personal affront. Crazy, I know. And I panic. If I don't scream at them at this moment, they'll never brush their teeth, and then they'll be late for school. And until I come up with tactics to get them to actually try to be on time, I have a feeling this pattern will continue (Suggestions will be GREATLY appreciated). But to my credit, no matter how pissed off I am, I cool down in the three minute commute, and by the time we turn onto Fairmount, I am ready to apologize to my boys for being so hard on them.

I try not to add conditions to my apology ("I'm sorry that I yelled at you, but if you would just move faster, I wouldn't have to yell"). I don't always succeed, and then I feel like crap, because as I drop them off to school, I still get the hugs, kisses, and I love you's, love I certainly didn't deserve that morning, but that I certainly try to deserve the next time I see them, when I will be the better person they see in me, that I want to be, that they deserve for me to be for them.