I once had an amazing humble dad brag in my back pocket. A true story that would illustrate to anyone that I was an enlightened parent who was teaching my kids lessons that would serve them well and make them into wonderful little human beings. Truth… it was a story that I used to fuel my ego of an intelligent, forward thinking, good dad.
I’d had conversations with my son and daughter about what to do when someone is mean to you at school. Fight back? Turn the other cheek? Tattle? No way. Those were too basic. My carefully devised strategy was built within the shell of intelligence and empathy. “If someone is mean to you, it’s probably because they’re having a tough time with something in their life. They’re probably in some kind of pain and they are trying to offload that pain onto you, so no one will notice the pain they’re carrying.”
My kids got it. Then one day on the way home, my daughter (a 2nd grader at the time) mentioned that someone said something really mean to her at school. My son (in 3rd grade) hopped into the conversation, right on cue. “Well, if he was mean to you, he probably has something really hard going on himself. It probably didn’t have anything to do with you.” She agreed. Everyone felt better. I casually dusted off my “Dad of the Year” trophy. It deserved to shine today.
A few weeks later, I was telling a good friend this story. My ego sat on pins and needles, waiting for the congratulatory boost. It didn’t come. What the fuck?
Instead, I got a different response.
“So, it sounds like the lesson you’re actually teaching your daughter is that her feelings aren’t valid”, she said.
What? No! I’m teaching her how to protect herself from feeling pain by explaining away other people’s actions before they can hurt you!
I didn’t say that. The only thing that came out of my mouth was. “Awwwww Shiiiiiiiit”
I hadn’t seen it. I was teaching her how to not feel feelings. Or worse… hide them. At least the negative ones.
And there it is…. “Don’t be sad”.
What’s really going on behind the scenes of that comment?
I see you’re sad. I don’t like it. Hide your sadness.
Anytime we feel a feeling and need to hide it for fear of judgement, we automatically attach shame to it. That’s a lot to process for a 7 year old. The message that kids receive is this: If a negative feeling bubbles up inside you, make sure to hide it and put on a happy face so the adults are comfortable. Yikes! When you put it like that, it’s a pretty shitty thing to say.
We’ve had a lot of family conversations about feelings since then, but that’s one that I’m still working to unwind. I had unintentionally created a space that wasn’t safe for her to express or show her feelings. Once it’s been created, changing a scary space into a safe one isn’t an easy process. It’d like walking her into a Halloween haunted house, then just flipped the lights on and then telling her there was no reason she should have been scared in the first place. That’s not a realistic scenario. It takes time to adjust to a new environment, especially when your nervous system has been programmed to a different one.
For some of us, we’re haunted by the memory of walking into a scary room of feelings when we were kids. We ran out screaming and never dared enter it again. There are entire books dedicated to the processes, therapies, ceremonies, etc that can help adults as they attempt to re-enter that space.
“Don’t be sad” doesn’t serve our kids. “Don’t be sad” doesn’t make them happy. It just shames them out of showing us sadness. Maybe it’s best to remove that phrase entirely from the parenting handbook.
