Last week, at the end of our week in a vacation house, Roger came in the bedroom and said, “I’m going to pack the car.”
I leaped from bed and began to rush around. I tried to pack, clean the house, eat my breakfast, separate dirty clothes from clean ones, clean out the refrigerator, and get dressed all at once. I felt rushed, harried, pressured. When I turned to yell at Roger for pressuring me, he was staring at me like I had suddenly lost all my marbles.
Once I heard a father speak to his unruly children in Spanish. He said, “Sit down and be quiet.” I had the overwhelming urge to run over to the bench he pointed at and sit down and be quiet. I didn’t remember the words from elementary school Spanish I just remembered what to do.
Like I knew the words, “I’m’ going to pack the car,” meant hurrying up and help before my mother and father argue. My mother was more creative than organized. My father did things yesterday. So when my father came home from work and said, “I’m going to pack the car,” a bomb or rushing pressure went off in our house. You knew it was time to be helpful and that you would at least feel the tension between the parents, if you didn’t get yelled at for doing or not doing something.
I couldn’t believe how those packing the car words brought back the tension. I reacted to Roger as if he were already mad at me because I stayed in bed when he packed the car!
I sure hope my kids don’t have any words like that. Maybe they will have a nice trigger. Whenever I smell- just- blown- out- candles, I expect Angel food birthday cake. How about you?
I have often obsessed about my chid-rearing, and what indelible negative triggers I may have planted. Thankfully, I don't hear about those from my children. I hear about chocolate chip cookies after school, and healthy, homecooked meals. Yay!
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