The mistake I made on Mother's Day and the dark side of motherhood

Here is something that no one really talks about when it comes to motherhood. 
There is this common misconception that because we as mothers are supposed to love our children unconditionally, we cannot get mad at them, ever. And if we do, than it automatically makes us bad parents. 
But that is simply not true.

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Transcript

Olena: 0:00

Come on, moms! You pretend to be made out of steel, but you aren't. We are all real human beings. We have feelings, we have emotions, and that is wonderful. The best thing we can do to ourselves and to our children is to let ourselves express those feelings, but do that in a way that will teach them something good. Something that we want them to learn about us, about the world, and about the kind of person they want to become. Hello, friend! I'm your host Olena Mytruk, and this is The Spark Your Life Podcast, a place where we go personal and way beneath the surface to learn how to be happy and successful both at the same time. No more need to compromise or choose one over the other. You can have it all. See this as your perfect coffee break podcast that will inspire you to go ahead and take that first step towards a truly exceptional and extraordinary life. Let's dive in! Today, I would like to talk to you about something that happened to me on mother's day. Something that I think we don't talk enough about. Let's just call it the dark side of motherhood. You know, there is this common perception that motherhood is all exciting, we love our kids unconditionally so we are always happy. We have to always be kind to our children. We always have to show them love and so on and so forth. And don't get me wrong, I do love my daughter to death. When somebody asks me if I regret getting married for the first time and, if I had a chance would I have not married my ex? I always tell them that I don't regret anything because that first marriage gave me my daughter. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be a mom of a 10 year old right now. And so, no, I don't have any regrets and I do love Dasha to death. But sometimes I want to punch her. Sometimes I get mad at her. Sometimes I get very angry. I think it is okay and I think way too often, we as mothers refuse to accept those feelings. We don't give ourselves permission to have these feelings. We feel like if we feel angry at our kids, then something is wrong with us. here is what happened last weekend on mother's day. my birthday was actually on Friday

2:28

May 12th And then Mother's

Olena: 2:30

Day was Sunday, May 14th, and we decided to combine the celebration and instead of doing a Sunday brunch, we were going to do Saturday lunch as a family. Before that on Friday, I took time off work and, Kevin also took time off So we spent some time together and on Friday morning I got my He got me a big, nice olive tree for our backyard. I know what a garden nerd I am. Somebody else would have asked for a Gucci purse or a piece of jewelry and I asked for an olive tree. That's who I am, I guess. So I got my tree and, we were planning on Saturday morning before going out to lunch to go to the plant store so that we can pick a planter for my new tree. Friday was a great day. we had lunch, then we had a family dinner, we celebrated my birthday, I was very happy, it was all good. Then Saturday came, we woke up, I was very excited about going and picking that planter for my new tree and we do like to go to plant stores and whenever we go we always come home with new plants, whether it's, some small plants for our house or some outdoor plants. Dasha always likes to select some new plants for her room. So that day was no exception. The moment we arrived to the store, Dasha was like, Hey, let's go find plants for my room." I told her, Hey Dasha, This is my day. We are here to pick the planter for my new tree. She didn't really care about it, so she dragged me to the area where all the indoor plants were and, we spent, I don't know, a good 30 minutes picking the three plants for her room. Once that was done, I was like,"Okay, now it's time for us to go and find the planter for my tree." And she was like,"No, but I need planters for my new plants. You can't just leave me. You need to help me pick the planters for my plants." That moment I got so mad. I got so frustrated. I felt so hurt because that was supposed to be my day. That was supposed to be a gift for me. We were supposed to come to that store and continue buying a Mother's Day and birthday gift for me and instead all we were doing was picking some stuff for her. I felt very hurt, I felt very angry, I felt very, very mad. It pretty much ruined my day. So I screamed at her, I was like,"No, you're not understanding, you're being mean right now. You are being rude, you don't care about me, you don't care about my birthday gift, so you don't get any plants. So I put those plants that she picked back on the shelf. We ended up not getting anything at the store, and then we were supposed to have lunch. Well, I can tell you that lunch was pretty much ruined because I was in a terrible mood. I still couldn't get over that feeling of just being so upset, so offended, so hurt. My feelings were really hurt. We had lunch. I didn't really enjoy it. We got back home. I was still unhappy. Then closer to the evening, I kind of began to feel okay. I wasn't so angry anymore, but I still felt very down and I didn't feel like hanging out with anybody from my family, I just wanted to really be alone. I kind of felt sorry for myself, to be honest with you. Then in the evening after we had dinner, my husband told me that I had kind of overreacted and he was like,"I just want to be honest with you. I completely understand why you got upset, but maybe our daughter didn't deserve such a reaction from your side. Maybe you were too harsh on her, too hard on her." I kept telling him how hurt I felt and how sad I felt and how mean she was to me and how I don't deserve that. He was like,"Yeah, I get it. But maybe still you should have been better about it." But I guess I just got in a very defensive position at the time. I was still feeling very emotional after that whole day. Then we just went to bed. As I was laying in bed, I was thinking about this day. I was thinking about what happened and I realized something very clearly. As parents we have responsibility. not to be the best parents because that thing doesn't exist. There is no such thing as best parents. You can be the best parents for your kid, but not objectively best parents. that's not a thing. But we do have responsibility to teach our kids the right things. Teach them what we believe is important in life. For each one of us that might mean something different and that is totally fine. We just need to know what that is and to teach them. That's our job. That's our job as parents to teach them how to be the kind of people they want to be. How to be good people in life. As I was thinking about it, I clearly realized that to me, this means teaching love, teaching respect, teaching care, teaching responsibility. But here's the caveat. Sometimes as moms we fall into the trap that teaching love means showing love, means accepting every behavior that your kid might express, because this is how you express your love towards them. And that is true. But it's also about receiving love. It's also about teaching them how they can show their love towards somebody else. Their parents, their friends, their future partners. That is as important as feeling loved. Of course, we want our kids to feel loved. We want them to be growing in the environment filled with love and care, but we also want them to know and to learn how to show that love and care to somebody else. This is why I felt so hurt and so angry and so mad early in that day because I felt like she was not showing love and care to me. Love and care that I felt I deserved. So it's not bad for us to get emotional as parents. There is nothing wrong with us getting angry. We just need to reflect on that and recognize that it's all about what we want to teach them. Ask yourself if you are being angry at your kid, and this is what I asked myself. Me being mean to her in return, me raising my voice to her when she does something mean, does it really teach her the right things? And the answer is clearly it doesn't, because me raising my voice when something happens that I don't like just teaches her that's the solution to every problem. Just scream at somebody, right? That's not what I want to teach her. What I want to teach her is noticing what the other person is experiencing when they are feeling hurt. Learn how to listen to their feelings, how to understand the other person's feelings and how to respond. That moment, it was very clear to me that it was okay for me to feel angry and hurt and sad and frustrated and offended, and all these other things that we normally feel like this is not okay to feel. It is okay to feel those feelings. It was just the way I expressed my feelings that was not really okay. I should have been much better about telling her how I feel without becoming rude and mean to her. It's something that, again, we just need to pay attention to as parents because we are adults and we have much more self control than our kids do. It is up to us to teach them self-control, among other things, and the only way we can do that is by being an example of what it's like. Being a good example of what it's like to behave when your feelings are hurt and how you tell the other person that your feelings are hurt without hurting their feelings in return. I wish I had a clear answer to you, how to do that. I guess each one of us has to find our own way. It's always about finding that balance with expressing your feelings, talking about your feelings, but doing it in a way that won't hurt somebody else in return. But I think just knowing that, remembering that this is what it is about. It's about teaching the right things and knowing what those right things are to begin with. By remembering that, you will find that balance, you will find the right words. Once I realized that, I felt very relieved. I finally wasn't feeling angry anymore. I was feeling a little bit guilty for getting so emotional early in the day but I also gave myself permission to do that and I forgave myself for doing that because I'm just a human being and so are you! We are not made out of steel. Come on, moms! You pretend to be made out of steel, but you aren't. We are all real human beings. We have feelings, we have emotions, and that is wonderful. The best thing we can do to ourselves and to our children is to let ourselves express those feelings, but do that in a way that will teach them something good. Something that we want them to learn about us, about the world, and about the kind of person they want to become. So, yeah, this is what I learned. It was a very insightful Mother's Day for me, but, I think it was really worth it and even with just this insight, it was very worth it for me personally. Since then, we've had very nice time together with my daughter. She has been wonderful. I think she clearly understood that she upset me on that day so she has been trying to be a very good daughter since then and I really appreciate that. But I have also, become a better mom, even in the last few days. This is what it's all about. It's just about learning something new every day, something new about yourself. It's about willing to learn something about yourself. It's about willing to get better. Just 1% better every day. If you only do that, then imagine how much better you will become a year from now, 10 years from now. Just one thought per day, just one tiny bit better per day and you will be amazed by who you become. thank you so much for listening. I would love to hear your stories because I'm sure you have your own mom struggles. Feel free to talk about those struggles more. As I said, at the beginning of this episode, I think we have to be talking more about this. This has to stop being a taboo. It has to be something we can openly talk about without the fear of being judged, because we are human beings. We have our feelings, we have our emotions I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful week, and I will see you next week for the next episode. Bye-bye.