Aubrey Hirsch’s Loco Parentis columns for The Butter can be found here.
I was talking on the phone with my friend the other day, telling her about a particularly tough day home with my son. Everyone in our house was sick and I’m super-pregnant and as much as I wish I could be an endless fountain of patience…I am decidedly not. Trying to cut to the chase about how the day had gone, I said, “Let’s just say I had to apologize to him A LOT.”
After a second to process that, she said, “You apologize to him?”
In fairness, her question makes a lot of sense. My son is only two and probably didn’t understand my apology or feel offended by my minor infraction. Apologizing to him is just something I’ve always done, ever since he was an infant. But her question made me think more about why I do this. Why apologize to a kid who can barely understand me?
I think it’s because I, myself, was a latecomer to the power of the apology. I come from a big Irish family in which hugs and laughter and sharing a drink most often stand in for the more direct “I’m sorry.” To be honest, I was never much good at saying it. I’m a clever fighter, a skilled debater. I’m self-aware and good at getting my point across. I’ve always been really good at winning arguments, but not very good at losing them.
My husband taught me how to do that. I remember so clearly one of our early fights, when we were still dating. He’d done something that made me feel slighted and I confronted him about it. I was braced for a long argument: his stubborn defense, my hammering in of the point, his digging in, my tying this to some exaggerated “pattern” of behavior, his dredging up some past transgression on my part to make me feel terrible, and then just general escalation until we retreated into our separate corners for a night of chilly silence.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, I told him how I felt and he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. How can we do this better next time?”
Uh.
I was not prepared for that. Instead of spending hours fighting, we spent a little time figuring out what failure in communication had led to the problem and the rest of the night just hanging out, having fun. Wow, I thought, this is much better.
To be sure, we’re not always like this. We have a lot of stupid fights and protracted anger and we’re both guilty of trying to “win” instead of solving the problem. But the simple magic of “I’m sorry” has totally changed my life for the better.
When someone apologizes to me, I know that my feelings are being understood and respected. I feel like I’m being treated as an equal. I feel like they’re going to help me fix the bad feeling and prevent it in the future, rather than just tell me I’m wrong for feeling it. I feel heard, loved and grateful.
Those are all things I want my son to feel. I’m his mom, so I am always right about stuff like whether one should run into the street, or whether it’s necessary to wear pants when it’s five degrees outside, or whether or not that pork tenderloin on his plate is the only thing being offered for dinner.
But about other things, I am not always right. I sometimes yell at him instead of putting him in the timeout chair. I sometimes lose my patience when he’s goofing off instead of finishing lunch and I have somewhere to be in eight minutes. I sometimes do the wrong thing. I want to show him that it’s okay to apologize when you’ve done the wrong thing. I don’t want him to see stubbornness as a sign of power or authority. I want him to know that it’s okay to admit when you’re wrong. That it can be a respectful and loving choice.
As he gets older, I expect to be apologizing a lot more, for more nuanced offenses. I’m getting a lot of practice apologizing to my toddler, and I hope I can apologize just as freely to my kid, my pre-teen, my teenager, my adult son. I want to teach him, the way my husband taught me, that he can come to me when he’s feeling bad and I won’t make him feel worse. That I’ll work with him to solve the problem. That we’re on the same team.
And that, when I’m wrong, I’ll tell him I’m sorry. I hope that, in turn, I’m teaching him to do the same.
Apologizing is so key! I think. It also helps validate their feelings. Like you, I don’t come from a family of apologizers. BUt I’ve seen the power of honest apologies, so I apologize to my kids a lot. Even when I get sharp and say, “STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER!” And my daughter says, “Mom you yelleded and dat hurted my feelings!” I do apologize then too (But after she stops hitting, because COME ON!). and it also helps for when we are having a rough time (everyone yelling, everyone mad at everyone), I can stop and apologize and ask that we start over again.
I always think of it as that yoga thing you say. The spirit in me acknowledges the spirit in you. Except for my kids it’s like, the human in me acknowledges the human in you.
Wow. This hit me really hard. I grew up in a home where no one apologized (except me) and as an adult I sometimes still struggle with apologies. Kudos on being such a good parent and a great example to your son.
It is really hard to learn to apologize as an adult. As a fellow adult who still struggles with it (my first reaction is usually defensive, if a friend or my spouse says I hurt their feelings), I salute you and encourage you to keep trying.
Thank you. I will. I’m in therapy now for some family issues, among other things, and realizing that the defensive/non-apologetic reaction exists (which it totally does for me too) feels really key for some reason. I’ve never even thought about it before.
This is wonderful. I, too, come from a family of non-apologizers. Never admit you’re wrong, that’s the key. To be wrong is to admit defeat. Of course, SOMEONE had to lose eventually, and the weird dynamic in my family meant that it was almost always me. Whether or not it was actually my fault, I would get yelled at and would not be allowed to go to bed until I claimed responsibility and apologized. For–whatever. Actually doing something, or letting my little sister do something, or maybe telling a lie, or something as vague as hurting Mom’s feelings and making Dad yell at me.
The end result of this was that I learned to lie really, really well. I also learned to apologize quickly and insincerely to nip trouble in the bud and allow me to escape quickly, and not be kept up till a delirious midnight. It was my sneaky way of getting satisfaction since my Dad wanted the feeling of true penitence but after about age 11 or so, I no longer allowed him the pleasure of my tears or pleading. By age 13, I was a practiced liar (they once sent me to a therapist around that time because I was caught shoplifting but she was a mile from the train station so I hitchhiked to get there and lied about it). It all made me very good at customer service, ha ha.
Short story: they wanted to raise a steadfast daughter who would not lie but because they could never admit to fault, they raised a sneaky daughter who lied all the time and had to learn to be a steadfast person who could genuinely apologize and have adult relationships only after putting 6-7 years and 3000 miles between herself and her parents.
One more edit: I keep remembering things. This therapist, who wasn’t even licensed because we couldn’t afford a real therapist (she was some christian something or other), met with me twice and then decided my problem was actually something to do with my parents. She called the parents in for a session, which they hated. We promptly cut off contact with her because she had not fixed me. Again, even though they thought I was “broken” because I shoplifted like, a barrette or something, I don’t even remember, they didn’t want to admit fault in any way.
TL DR, I guess, don’t be afraid to admit fault with your kids. It doesn’t make you weak.
This is so much my story–sneaky, lying, never true emotions….thank you.
Thank you for making me not feel like a freaky freak. <3
Thank you for sharing this.
Are you me? This was exactly my childhood. I have to be really careful and aware when I’m confronted with some transgression as an adult because if I don’t pay attention my natural instinct is to lie, no matter what.
This was my experience as well. Compulsive lying is the hardest habit to break.
they wanted to raise a steadfast daughter who would not lie but because they could never admit to fault, they raised a sneaky daughter who lied all the time
Well, now I’m just looking at my computer screen, completely thunderstruck with recognition.
“When someone apologizes to me, I know that my feelings are being understood and respected. I feel like I’m being treated as an equal. I feel like they’re going to help me fix the bad feeling and prevent it in the future, rather than just tell me I’m wrong for feeling it. I feel heard, loved and grateful.”
That is some A+ parenting/humaning right there, beautifully expressed. Our parents never apologized because it would never have occurred to them that our feelings needed to be respected – in many ways they weren’t capable of seeing us as separate and independent individuals who should be listened to, only as reflections of themselves, and it was probably one of the hardest things to overcome as an adult.
“Our parents never apologized because it would never have occurred to them that our feelings needed to be respected” – this, so much.
I like to think that at the end of the day, I was raised with lots of love by good parents who tried their best, but my emotional education was not so great. They were non-apologizers and even at a young age I sensed that something was off about that. Your comment puts that feeling into words – if you don’t get an apology, your feelings are not validated or treated as important or equal, and I think that contributes to thinking that your feelings don’t matter and it makes it hard to acknowledge when *you* do something wrong. As a kid I started to think that my words and actions weren’t significant – so if I act like a jerk or do something selfish, it doesn’t have consequences because people don’t take me seriously anyway; so basically I didn’t self-regulate or take responsibility for my words and actions growing up (and because I was a quiet kid who kept to herself and didn’t act out, it went unchecked). This also extended to self-esteem and how I related to others. It’s really hard to learn that your feelings matter and that apologizing is not just about placating someone. I’m near 30 and a lot better at ‘feelings’ now, but sometimes I still catch myself reverting to this broken logic.
Kudos to the author; I think getting deserved apologies from your parents is so, so important. It validates a child’s feelings and their personhood, and it models what taking responsibility for yourself looks like, so a simple “I’m sorry” is a far-reaching teaching tool and really wonderful way to show love.
“It’s really hard to learn that your feelings matter and that apologizing is not just about placating someone.”
Ooh, ouch, yes. I also like to think my parents were trying their best, but my mother in particular was the product of a pretty damaging childhood and to this day she’s still running the tapes my grandmother installed in her head. It’s pretty difficult as a child to wrap your head around that, though. Kudos to you too for your progress!
There’s obviously a lot of variation here but I’d like to believe that in most cases it never occurred to them to respect us because they hadn’t been respected by their own parents and no one ever taught them any different. I can think of so many of my own bad behaviours that I inherited from my parents that I would probably still be perpetrating if someone else hadn’t intervened. And I count myself very lucky that other people did take me aside and explain this shit to me in such a way that I was able to hear it.
As well as all the fantastic things other commenters have already covered, you’re modeling basic good, kind behavior. If your son sees that you see apology as a normal thing and not a sign of weakness, he’ll grow up knowing how to apologize and be a good boyfriend/friend/roommate/coworker. It astonishes me how many parents treat their kids with no respect at all– and then are SO APPALLED when they get to be teens and start disrespecting their parents.
what could possibly be the logic behind not apologizing to your children??? admittedly, i don’t have children of my own, but teaching honesty, communication, and humility to your children as early as possible, and trying to serve as an example—that seems like a no-brainer.
in my own family, apologizing is complicated. my brother…well, he was never diagnosed and armchair diagnosis is dangerous, but his brain works in a way where he is very very stubborn, can be very inconsiderate, and has a lot of difficulty understanding other people’s points of view. i would never in a million years get an apology from him, and my parents taught me to not expect any. the closest i’d get is “i’m sorry you’re angry for some reason,” which is…not an apology. weirdly, i think my parents absorbed this from my brother, a bit. last time i got in a fight with my mom, i had to try and explain to her why “i’m sorry you overreacted and got upset” is not an apology. luckily, we rarely argue.
Well, this got me in the feels.
You’re very welcome! Any time I see you around these threads feel free to chat. My friends are also bad at dealing with this and I feel weird telling them certain things to begin with, so it’s nice to be able to be honest with someone.
I’ve been in therapy getting over parents who never apologized has helped me become a better adult. But knowing that other people have been through the same thing makes me feel less alone and broken. Thanks Toasties!
You’re not alone, you’re not broken, and you can heal.
It would never occur to me not to apologise to my daughter, who is five months old. I mean, of you didn’t do it from birth, what’s the right age to start? I explain things to her, and make jokes to her, and apologise to her – of course she doesn’t understand yet, but I’m setting the patterns for myself of how I want to talk to her.
The other one I’m doing more deliberately is reinforcing her physical and relationship boundaries. She was about three months old the first time I heard myself say, “oh sweetie, don’t cry at Friend! She is nice and just wanted to cuddle you!” And then I stopped myself and said, “but of course, of you don’t want to be cuddled by Friend, that’s OK too! You are allowed to not want that!” Of course I want to learn to do that whilst it makes little difference to her. Why would I wait until she can understand and the stakes at high to start practising?
That is such a fantastic point about boundaries. When you grow up without the power to say you don’t want to be hugged or kissed by someone – friend or family – how on earth do you figure out how to set boundaries for yourself?
Your daughter is a lucky person.
When visiting my partner’s family in Australia, his then-two-year-old nephew didn’t want to hug one of us at one point. His mother started saying something along the lines of, “J, if someone wants to hug you, you should let them”, and then stopped in horror as she realised what she was saying. We did not force it.
One of the ways in which my dad was an awesome dad was that he would apologize to us if he felt he’d done something wrong. So if he’d lost his temper with one of us unreasonably, or something like that (usually that) then an hour or so later he would knock on our bedroom door and when we opened it he would apologize. This was very unusual for a 1970s dad. We had SO MUCH RESPECT for that man because he treated us like genuine human beings. My mum, on the other hand, has never apologised for anything, and shows no sign of seeing us as real people with actual feelings. It’s hard to overstate just how toxic that is. I apologize to my kids when I’m out of line, because they actually do have a right to that.
Late comment but would anyone here be interested in starting a kind of “Children of Questionable Parenting Styles” Toastie support group? I don’t know how we would meet but there seem to be a lot of us who might benefit from it.
Are you aware of the Dysfunctional Families threads over on Making Light? I just lurk over there, but there are some wise and wonderful people posting on this very issue. It started as a one-day-a-year discussion but has rolled over into an ongoing thing.
As a parent, it was hard and scary to step away from the I Have to be Right Because I’m the Mother place to admit that I make mistakes and sometimes don’t really know what I’m doing. But I sense that my kids appreciate my apologies (even if they always immediately say That’s OK!) and I hope that they’ll learn that they’re not expected to have all the answers or get everything right when they’re adults.
Also, if you can be wrong sometimes, but still be Mom, and still be in charge, and still be important and loving, this really reduces the need for your teenager to rebel when they realize they disagree with you about everything.
In my experience, apologies tend to come back to vulnerability, and we are less likely to offer them to those to whom we want to appear strong. I’m not a parent but I imagine it’s very difficult learning to be vulnerable with your children because you aim to protect them and you only want them to see your strength. Which is ironic of course, because like the ability to cry in front of others, the ability to apologize is a true test of strength. It requires trust and humility that are all too often in short supply in family relationships.
YES a thousand times yes. We all mess up in our relations with others, including children. I am not the most patient person and am sharp with my kids more than I wish. I’m trying to be better about it. But I also apologize to them when I’m wrong. It’s simply out of respect for them as human beings. I hope they are taking from it that they deserve respect for that and that all other people do as well.
Totally agree. I say I’m sorry all the time to them, and you know what the cool thing is? They say it back to me. Even the two-year-old!
Totally agree. I say I'm sorry all the time to them, and you know what the cool thing is? They say it back to me. Even the two-year-old!