‘Pants-Free Parenting’: Emotions are worth listening to

I was loading the dishwasher, when my four-year-old came storming into the kitchen.

'I am mad at you, because you didn't put my magic hair brush away where it belongs!” She pointed at me and her little tutu quivered with rage. It's hard to take a kid seriously when they are dressed like a ballerina princess with Elmo stickers on their face, but I did my best. She was right, after all, I didn't put her brush away where it was supposed to go. I had left it on her bed.

'I am sorry,” I said. 'I will help you find it.”

'Fine!” she yelled and crossed her arms, sticking her stickered nose into the air and storming away, leaving behind her a trail of glitter and rage.

It's a fine line I am walking these days, carefully navigating the emotions of the people in my house with my own personal well-being and there are so many emotions. My two-year-old is completely happy until he is a ball of rage and tantrums. My four-year-old waffles between declaring every day the best day ever and accusing me of 'ruining” her 'whole, entire life” by turning on my music instead of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song for the millionth time in a row.

I want my children to feel entitled to their emotions. Feelings are for feeling, I repeat over and over, while I hold a child who is crying over a lost toy or the fact that I made them the wrong kind of oatmeal for breakfast. I mean, they still have to eat the oatmeal, but they can feel bad about it.

I frequently tell my daughter that she is allowed to be angry with me, lord knows I get angry with my parents often enough. But the constant wear of so many feelings, makes me want to run away to my own ice palace on the mountain.

Teaching emotion isn't my strong suit, but it is also not something I can outsource, like I will when my kids eventually need help with chemistry homework. And it takes emotional resilience, which is not something I possess. I am not a feelings person. In one of my past jobs, my boss entrusted me with answering the calls of a publisher who frequently screamed at us, 'He makes everyone cry except you,” she said. 'It's almost like you have no feelings to hurt.”

I was so proud of her words, I wanted to put them on my resume.

But with children it is more personal and it is also no personal. They blame you, they take all their feelings out on you, because you are the one safe place for them. The one small harbor in a world that honestly doesn't care if their juice has ice cubes in it or not. And frankly, I don't care either, but I care about their feelings, because feelings aren't weaknesses, they aren't character flaws to be masked or glossed over, they are a normal part of the human condition. Emotional pain, like physical pain, is worth listening to and paying attention to, so even though these moments are small, I want rush into them, not away.

I followed my daughter upstairs, helped her find her brush and gave her a hug.

'It's OK for you to feel angry and frustrated,” I said and took the Elmo sticker off her nose. 'Next time though, can we do it without the screaming?”