This prompt is difficult because it asks us to admit acting in ways that we recognized as objectionable in others, but found ourselves doing anyway. I almost didn’t write this week, because I didn’t want to recognize that I had done this. Of course I have made plenty of mistakes, both in childrearing and in life in general, but I like to think my mistakes were original, and not the repetition of the mistakes of others that I already knew were bad.

Although I wish it were not so, I realize there are three areas where I have done things I swore I'd never do.

However, on reflection, I realize there are three areas where I have done things I swore I’d never do.

Criticism

My mother was nearly perfect, as far as I was concerned. I don’t remember anything that I wished she would do differently when I was a child. In fact, as a young mother I wore an imaginary WWMD bracelet, and whenever I had a problem with one of my children, I tried to figure out how she would have handled it. However, in her dealings with me as an adult, the one thing she did that I didn’t like was criticize my appearance – specifically my hair. Every time I saw her. It was annoying, because no matter how hard I tried to make my hair look good, it was never good enough for her. Looking back at old family reunion pictures, I have to admit that she was absolutely right, my hair was out of control most of the time! Even so, it was upsetting to realize that I never looked good enough to her, and I thought I would never do something like that to my adult children. However, when my oldest daughter was living back at home for a couple of years between stints in grad school, I kept suggesting to her that she was wearing too much makeup. I regularly pointed out that nobody else wore that much eyeliner and eye shadow, and I even went to Sephora with her to try to get her to buy a different type of foundation that didn’t look so much like a mask. (The salesperson at Sephora was no help at all, but then again, they all wear too much makeup too.) And when my son shaved his head because he was unhappy with his receding hairline, I kept urging him to let his hair grow back, even just a little bit, saying I thought he would look better with hair. I shouldn’t have done those things, and the kids didn’t listen to me anyway. Just like I didn’t listen to my mother.

Clutter

My in-laws in my first marriage were the worst packrats imaginable. Every surface in their house was covered with old newspapers and magazines, as well as other papers and miscellany. It was all in piles stacked at least a foot high. The newspapers spanned many years, not saved because there was an important article in them, just saved because they never threw anything away. In the living room there were piles on the coffee table, the couches and chairs, even the piano and piano bench. In the dining room, the table and chairs were covered with papers. Even the kitchen table, where they ate every day, had piles of papers on it, with two little open spaces where they put their plates. Whenever we went to visit them in Bakersfield, I felt suffocated by the amount of clutter, which we had to move around just to find a place to sit. When we got home from a visit, I would spend some serious time cleaning up my own clutter. I swore I would never become like that. And I haven’t. Not quite. I do feel a little overwhelmed by the paper that has accumulated in my own house. Not newspapers and magazines like they had, because we recycle those every week. But letters, financial statements, and other papers of various types do seem to pile up far faster than I can dispose of them. They are not on the furniture (except my desk) (okay, and one of my dressers) (well, and also in one bedroom which has been unoccupied for years), but there are lots of piles on the floor in my bedroom and in the room where my desk is. I even have my own paper shredder now, but so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to use it very often.

Crying

My father would get mad whenever any of us cried. We were obviously already upset about something, or we wouldn’t have started crying. So then his yelling at us to stop crying only made it worse. I hated that he did that, and swore I would never do such a thing. When my own kids were little, I handled their tantrums with aplomb. I simply said “You know you don’t get anything by crying,” and then ignored them til they calmed down. Friends were impressed by how calm I was about it. But when they got a little older, I found that their crying would make me mad. I tried not to yell, but I think I was not as nice as I could have been. I would say something like “if you need to cry for a while, that’s fine, but please do it somewhere else and come back when you’ve stopped.” Obviously this did not apply to times they were crying because they were physically hurt. But if they started crying in the middle of a math lesson, or a disagreement of some type, I could feel myself getting angry. I regret that I wasn’t more patient with them, but I have to say that I learned this behavior from my father. I think I handled it better than my father did, and I did come to understand him a little better as a result. I wish I hadn’t felt so angry, but at least I never threw a milk bottle at any of them!

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I wonder if my children have lists of things that my husband or I did (the ones I’ve mentioned or others) that they swear they’ll never do. But I’m not going to ask them!