Brilliant … But Bouncy

My Yelling Hurt My Baby.

I nearly tiptoed to Dylan’s room today, wanting to make sure he got enough food to eat before he left for work. Dylan has a tendency to race out the door for a 10-hour shift with nothing but a jar of peanuts and a bottle of water.

I knocked quietly and Dylan opened the bedroom door. I started speaking quietly. “I’m sorry to bother you but I am hoping that you will get enough to eat today….”

Within a span of two minutes, I had blown up. I was screeching like a crow. “YOU DIDN’T WASH YOUR WORK CLOTHES YET?!?” Screeeech screeech screeeech…. An awful sound.

A few minutes later, I apologized for my behavior. Again.

Dylan said, “It’s interesting timing because I just realized that I beat myself up now every single time I make a mistake.”

A mistake? He made a mistake?

I didn’t even know what Dylan was talking about: “mistake.” Whatever it was that made me yell, Dylan had not done it on purpose.

I suddenly realized that Dylan wasn’t doing the stupid things he does on purpose. He wasn’t “not caring” about the things I’d asked him to do, which is the way I always see it. Dylan was not being obstinate.

He just made a mistake.

And I screamed at him as if he’d clubbed some frail old woman in the knee.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. In fact, I’ve been doing this for his entire life. Every time he made a mistake, I yelled at him. Because I truly believed that Dylan – with all his ADHD and quirkiness – was deliberately doing the wrong thing.

I remember the first time I yelled at Dylan. He was tiny – not even two – and I handed him a very fragile Christmas ornament. I said, “Be very careful. Don’t drop it or it will break!” I was trying to show him that I trusted him to take care of something important.

And I swear: Dylan slammed that ornament down on the tile floor like it was his only mission in life to break it.

As it shattered, I exploded too. He had purposefully broken my prized ornament! As I screamed, I could see his tiny face go from its normally smiling position to one of complete confusion.

His eyes got wide; a frown appeared. I’d never seen that face before. It’s the face of a child who’s truly hurt.

Dylan had no idea what he’d done wrong. And since he was so young, I will never know if he broke that ornament on purpose. Heck, maybe he just wanted to see if I was right that it would break.

The only thing I remember is: my yelling hurt my baby.

I picked him up, then, and cuddled him and apologized and said it was okay. I told him we would learn how to clean up the pieces together, and we did. And from that moment on, things that were obvious mistakes – spilled milk, a broken glass, a button off a shirt – those things were received with calm reassurance that it wasn’t the end of the world.

But the rest of Dylan’s mistakes – those where that I thought he should have known better, but he didn’t? Those were met with the horrific, roaring monster that “Mommy” became. For his entire life.

So today – far, far, far too late – that stops. It just stops.

That kind of hurt – the kind I’ve instilled – will never go away. But at least I can stop instilling more pain.

Please, God, help me stop.