DAY 17 - Own it (21 DAYS OF RAGE)

This is the 17th instalment of a 21 day writing series about maternal rage and anger.

My husband says I’m terrible at apologising. He says I break all the basic rules of saying sorry - taking too long, qualifying my apology (“I’m sorry YOU got upset about that”) or making excuses (“I’m sorry but you did come in in a mood already and then …”)

I am trying to be better. But at least it isn’t the same with my children. If I ever shout or bang things (doors, pans etc) in sheer frustration, if I act unfairly or upset them, I always try to say sorry as soon as possible. A proper sorry, from the heart. I don’t find it hard to do this because I really do mean it. I always try and communicate why I think it happened and why it wasn’t right or fair. I often try to give some context like, I’m very tired and I’m stressed out and I think that’s why it happened.

I’ve written before about how saying sorry doesn’t always make it ok - it doesn’t feel good to keep falling into a pattern of anger and having to say sorry. Then the sorrys become not enough. We all need a certain level of stability to feel safe and happy.

But in the context of trying, growing and learning, of enough connection and stability, these repair moments are often generative of more closeness. They give us a chance to see each other and to understand where the other person might be coming from. They often to lead to more conversation around what we need or want.

As humans we are messy contradictions, good and bad, simple and complex. I want to feel whole and integrated more than I want to feel perfect, because that’s what I want for my children too. I know the weight of trying to be perfect, a familiar rhythm inside me. Abandoning parts of ourselves out of shame doesn’t tend to lead to much good.

I’ve started to wonder if the way I own my anger and rage matters too. If I heap it with shame when I say sorry, I might be passing on the same pattern of anger-shame-anger-shame to my child. I have tried to humanise it - “we all get angry sometimes and I did then. I’m really sorry. I will explain to you why I think it happened.” It’s a complex balance. It’s both understandable and not ok by itself, it’s both frightening to see and often something children recover from, in the right context, with the right care and repair. By showing I can integrate different parts of myself into a whole, however messy and varied, I suspect I am at least displaying something useful to my kids.