Repetition. So much of life is repetition. Breathe in. Breathe out. All the daily routines from brushing our teeth and getting dressed to brushing our teeth again and going to bed at night. Over and over again. But when the repetition involves encounters with other people it wears me out. Having the same interaction with someone else over and over again is rough. I don’t have enough patience and perseverance to do it and feel good about it.
This is especially true when dealing with my kids. Every single day, day after day, the same show of disrespect. The same show of not being able to think of anyone else’s feelings. That kind of repetition is grinding me. Each time my frustration mounts higher. Each time I have a little less patience for repeating the interaction.
The mythology of Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again is so perfect. He puts in the work to get the boulder up the hill only to feel the same frustration again as it rolls back down. No matter how I handle these bouts of disrespect from my children the result is the same.
But there’s a more modern story about the repetitive nature of our lives that gives us more hope: the movie Groundhog Day. When I first saw the movie, I didn’t really like it. I was too young to appreciate what was really going on. The movie’s message isn’t about frustration and hopelessness like the story of Sisyphus. The movie’s message is that once we accept the repetitive nature of our existence, then we can free ourselves from the frustration and apply ourselves to being the best person we can be and apply ourselves to helping other people, who are still stuck and frustrated. That’s some powerful shit.
Today I had another version of the same conversation I’ve had with my daughter so many times before. She has long hair. She likes having long hair. However, she doesn’t like having it brushed. Snarls and tangles don’t feel good when they’re brushed out. I get it, but no one is making her have long hair. During today’s conversation, I told her that if she didn’t like having her hair brushed, she didn’t have to have long hair. She immediately started to escalate, thinking that I was threatening to cut her hair. Pause. No, I wasn’t threatening her, I was just trying to explain the reality of the situation to her. If every time her hair is brushed it hurts and she doesn’t like it, then what can she do to change this? Cut her hair. If having long hair is that important to her then she needs to accept that brushing it will hurt and handle it better.
I was proud of my Dad skills there. I thought I had really explained something to her about facing a reality, accepting it and coming to terms with it. But, after a while, what I said started sinking into my brain too. Turns out, I am doing an equally horrible job, as my kids are doing, at accepting how things are. My son and I are stuck in a repetitive rut of his disrespect and my frustration, and I just explained the conversation with my daughter. So I am getting frustrated over and over again every time my son is disrespectful or my daughter is yelling about getting her hair brushed, even though I should expect these things. I have no reason to believe that these things will be any different yet I continue to get frustrated, upset, angry, worn out and every other negative emotion. Why?
As a parent, this is a little murky. We should strive for our kids to learn how to handle things better and we should be trying to teach that. But for me to get frustrated every time, like I’ve described, is me not accepting things as they are. I can continue to try to teach them and guide them but why can’t I do that while accepting that their current behavior is going to continue? I’m not suggesting that I accept their behavior as ok. I’m saying that I could accept that their behavior is what it is and instead of thinking it’s going to be different next time, I could be prepared for it to be the same.
If we’re expecting the punch to the face, does it hurt less? I don’t know but I’ve got nothing to lose. Will I have more patience and be less affected by their behavior if I expect it? Can I stay calmer and feel better and maybe even be a more effective teacher if I expect their behavior to be the same way it’s been?
While some of my frustration is about not accepting things as they are, some of it is also ego. My frustration is also about my belief that they should respect me because I am an adult and I am their parent. Some of my frustration is my dislike for having to deal with this behavior at all. Instead of it being about my need to be respected and my frustration about how the kids are acting, it could be about teaching them to be respectful and to handle themselves better. Ego is not helping here. Imagine if I didn’t react personally to these interactions. I wouldn’t be frustrated at all, I would just be doing my parenting job and moving on.
Accept things for what they are and destroy the ego. No problem.
Breathe in. Breathe out.