On one particularly beautiful morning, my sweet 4-year-old daughter, Maygan, sauntered up to the kitchen, placed her hand purposefully on the counter next to her father and clearly stated, “dad, I want some mother-f@#king pancakes.” Kevin, who never swears even though he has been in the military for 20 plus years, looked right over at the teenagers (Cam and Alex) sitting on the couch, who were laughing hysterically, and said, “this is your fault! She didn’t learn that from me!” Truth be told, she might have heard that from the teenagers…or from me. Yeah, it’s true, I’m no f*@%ing saint.
The innocence of a child is adorably cute and funny yet simple and beautiful. Maygan had no idea she was using the mother of all swear words to her father who doesn’t swear at all. She simply wanted pancakes and she asked for them. Cam and Alex swear they did not put her up to that to this day. Kids parrot what they hear and see, and, man, do they see EVERYTHING!
Another fine example is when I was driving down the street with my two wee ones, Alyssa and Sabrina, in the back seat. They might have been around 3 and 4 at the time, old enough to talk, but not old enough to be in school. Another car cut right in front of me and almost caused an accident. Road rage took over as I panicked and yelled, “you stupid mother f*!%ing a$$h@le!” I kind of forgot my girls were in the back seat as the adrenaline settled. Then, softly, a sweet, little voice from the back of the car brought me back to reality, “mom, what’s a mother f*!%ing a$$h@le?”
This is pretty obvious; kids learn from us. We are the ones that teach them to speak in the first place. We teach them everything from infancy on. What is not always obvious is what they learn from what they see and not necessarily hear. All of my daughters have struggled with self-confidence. They have all made self-deprecating comments about their looks, their weight, and their intelligence. I have quickly chastised them not to say such bad things about themselves and reaffirmed they are beautiful, smart and talented. But I don’t think they have ever fully believed me. Alyssa and Sabrina have both said to me at different times, as teenagers, “where do you think we learned it from? You say bad things about yourself all the time.”
Well, for starters, I didn’t think I said bad things about myself all the time. I’m not a supermodel or a genius, but I’m no hideous schmuck, either. I started to hear myself speak and see the way I avoided mirrors. I avoided being the one in the pictures. I made snide jokes about my weight. Or made some comment about looking like death. I couldn’t receive a compliment without dismissing it in some way at the same time. Slowly, I saw my daughters were learning to NOT see their beauty from me. I had told them what I believed about them but taught them not to believe it by what I did to myself. *Mind Blown*
So, now what? How do we repair the damage of the old adage, “do as I say not as I do” from our own parents? But complicate it more by “don’t even do what I say!” Who knows? I sure as Hell don’t. My best guess is to work on ourselves as mothers to see our value. Believing in our own value and beauty, no matter what, is the example that our children must see. We are part of them and they are part of us. They must believe they come from someone who values themselves so they learn the unspoken words of the value they are. Does that sound too reflexive? Too gooey? Well, maybe so, but tough, it’s the truth.
I grew up watching my own mother talk badly about herself, say things like she was not that smart or not that pretty. And she was okay with it, she wasn’t lamenting or self-pitying, it was like she had accepted it. It made me so angry, I would chastise her, saying, “mom, don’t say those things about yourself.” It hurt that she didn’t see herself in a better light, because I love my mom; she was a good mom. So, bottom line…kids will learn everything from us, good and bad. They will learn plenty from the world around them as they grow, but mothers form the basis of who they believe they are and our words are important, even the words we say when we think no one else is listening. Oh, believe me, the kids are always listening.