The Day I Hit My Child

Just writing the title, I feel guilt pouring into me like a waterfall.

Yesterday was Saturday. Dave left for a week of serving in Haiti (missions) and apparently I lost my mind.

It had been building for weeks. Changes at work and changes in my 10-year-old and drama with the neighborhood kids and not enough room in our apartment and not dealing with any of those had all led up to this moment of me standing over my child in a fit of rage.

The morning had been quiet; after an early movie (yea for diet Coke and 2 hours of quiet) and a stop at the library, we were home and happy. Without warning, the gates of hell broke loose at our kitchen table. Someone took someone else's Nerf gun and the someone screamed loud enough to wake the dead before the thieving someone lunged at his brother.

What right did he have? Who did he think he was, disrupting the quiet and making threats?

Go to your room. And stay there.

He didn't stay there.

And so I found myself fueled by anger, standing over my oldest love with a clenched fist.

Pound.

Pound.

Pound.

Stop now, before you go somewhere you do not want to be.

He turned around to look at me, eyes wide.

You hurt me.

All afternoon, we had watched home movies of him and his baby self, with the same wide eyes but 8 years earlier. All morning, I wished I could go through the camera lens to another time and tell that young mom to nurture him more, to be less hard on herself and on him, to cherish the times he could not talk back with bite.

Yet here we were, on a Saturday afternoon in our guilt and our tears, a new season so much different than diapers and wobbly baby steps.

And as we stood by the kitchen sink, him wearing an apron after making me lunch as a peace offering (it was 5:30pm) and me wearing my shame, we held each other and cried about our shared tempers and lack of self-control. We committed to do better, to help each other be better.

If we see the other start to get angry, let's ask, "do you need a break?".

I could feel him nod against my neck.

He isn't waist-high anymore. His body is changing faster than I can keep up, and I'm not sure I even know how. And all these questions loom about how I can guarantee he makes the good choices and chooses the right friends and stays away from the wrong.

But I can't. There are no promises in this gig; I am imperfect as they are. To expect that they should be better behaved and more self-controlled than me is a fantasy I am letting go of yesterday.

I have no idea what the next 8 years will bring with this child I love but at times don't like. All I can do is teach him what I know and surrender the rest.

And let go of a little of that guilt.