Among all the parenting rules in the book, no quarreling in front of the kids must rank pretty high up there. But, it’s the one that my husband and I have been flouting a lot lately, when our little five-year-old is around. And while we don’t choose to quarrel in full view of Sophie, arguments sometimes get over heated with voices raised and a quarrel ensnares. And when our voices rise, Sophie catches our bickering.
As much as we try to avoid conflict in our marriage, this is real life, where we have our failings keeping our tempers in check. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt.
I’m not proud that my daughter has to witness it, especially since she has a sensitive soul and picks up on the negative vibes quickly. And it’s even worse, when she thinks that mummy and daddy don’t love each other anymore because of our quarreling.
Last week, hubby and I had a heated arrangement over my complete lack of organizational abilities, which sent me flying into a rage because I was already halfway through packing. With more to and fro with his expectations and my explanations, neither was ready to step back or cool off. Before we knew it, there was a shouting match.
Sophie heard the commotion and came to my room and from the corner of my eye I could see her fear.
Intermittently, my little one even jumped to my defense and told daddy to stop scolding me because I was already trying my best to pack. Her words, though comforting, also felt like a sting and made me feel so guilty that she had to see the two people that she loved most in such an ugly argument. After I calmed down, hubby finally decided to help me pack as well and we both got working.
After 15 minutes little Sophie came back with a smile on her face and said:
See mummy and daddy you’re working together. You are a team now.
Those are words of gold coming from my five-year-old.
After we were done packing, we gave each other hi-fives for work well done. I even apologized for my lousy attitude to hubby and thanked him for helping, making sure that it was within Sophie’s ear-shot. I could see her beaming away.
As a mum, I sometimes forget that kids learn what they see and not what they hear. As much as we try to teach them to behave in a certain way, it’s what we model that will be a standard for them. And while quarreling in front of the kids is still a no no in my opinion, children learn that parents are also human. Parents can make mistakes but what matters is having the humility to apologize and ask for forgiveness.
At the end of the day, we are far from being perfect and can only endeavor to be better dads or mums for our kids.
This is an original post for World Moms Blog from our writer in Singapore, Susan Koh of A Juggling Mom.
The image used in this post is credited to Matt Smith and holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Oh, Susan, this post brought tears to my eyes when I read; “See mummy and daddy you’re working together. You are a team now.” Sometimes it is our children teaching us, and not the other way round!
I’m happy to be able to confirm that you’re absolutely right – none of us are perfect and things *will* be just fine as long as we are willing to apologize to our children when we do something wrong or unintentionally hurt them. Honesty is always the best policy – better to let your child see you fight, make up and apologize, than fight behind closed doors. Trust me, children are very sensitive and feeling the tension without knowing the real reason actually hurts them more!
I’m learning so much from her everyday. I’ve had my share of revealing the very humane and ugly side of me. But hey isn’t that’ reality and we can always make it a lesson out from such episodes.
My husband and I had a spell of arguing. It wasn’t even arguing over real issues it was underlying stress that was causing. A few times my 6 year old said “You promised NO MORE FIGHTING” It would make me cry….work, life, family is a lot at times. It’s not easy BUT obviously it’s so worth it!
You said it so well Sarah, it is worth it and though the journey may not feel like it sometimes, it usually does when we look back.
It is so very human! We can’t pretend that life is what is isn’t to our kids, right? I grew up in a house where quarreling was the norm. My husband and I are in a good place and we actually don’t fight that much. We got a lot of that out in the early years! lol 😉
Same here Jenn. I remember fighting and quarreling in the first year of our marriage and thought, Gosh this is so different from what I signed up for. We’re in a much better place now, except for the occasion bickering..
We try not to have ‘ugly’ fights in front of the kids, and no parental ones either, but when we have small arguments in front of the kids, we make sure they see us making up as well. I think it’s quite healthy actually. We don’t want them to think being in a relationship is easy and perfect, do we?
Youow, I’ve struggled with this in the past, butI’ve come to think that it isn’t *so* bad for our kids to see us argue. Or be tired or sad or just generally not at our best. It teaches them that we are human. We can’t do it all; we need help. Girls, especially, and most especially girls where I live (Japan,) get so many messages to the contrary. How different would our lives be if we knew from a young age that no one is perfect, no one can do everything perfectly all the time, everyone loses their temper occasionally, and that is absolutely okay? Not saying you should build a boxing ring and go all WWF style on your husband, of course, but occasional bickering and arguing just shows are children that we are human. And are dads beating themselves up over this? Probably not.