The magic word is sorry

“In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry.” ~Margaret Laurence

 

Pretty much anyone who has ever read this blog or knows me in person knows I apologize. A lot. Maybe too much sometimes.

 

J used to be all, "hey, where's the skillet?" and I'd answer, "In the dishwasher. I'm sorry." Of course then he'd say, "WTF are you sorry for?"

 

Okay. That's a lie. He never said "WTF."

 

He heard me say "I'm sorry" just about as much, if not more than "I love you." And I'm one of those people who says "I love you" about ten million times a day. Just enough to make you wonder if maybe I really do have a few screws loose.

 

But, over time, I've mostly broken that habit. I don't apologize for things (often) that I have no control over or that are menial (like a skillet in the dishwasher...).

 

I do, however, still apologize. A lot.

 

Because, quite frankly, I still make a mistakes. A lot.

 

And I will always take responsibility for my faults. Always. Because I want kids who do the same. I think it's a great show of character. And saying you're "sorry" might just be one of the most difficult things in the world to do. But the more you practice, the more you're able to do it.

 

Now don't get me wrong; "sorry" doesn't fix things. I will always be of the belief that sorry can't make things better. But I still think it's important to say.

 

If you mean it.

 

And only if you mean it.

 

Sorry is only as powerful as the feelings behind it. Someone who isn't truly remorseful but still apologizes is just a liar and nothing more. Someone who feels true remorse and is able to apologize of their own free will is a rock star in my book.

 

Because it's hard.

 

I tell my kids I'm sorry ever single time I am curt or snappy with them. Every. Single. Time. As soon as I realize my completely inappropriate tone, I stop, continue with whatever the situation is, and as soon as things are settled down (and sometimes before depending on what is going on) I immediately tell them, "I'm really sorry that Mommy snapped at you like that. That was wrong of me and I should be kinder, always."

 

My kids are kids. They yell and scream and get snappy. But they also calm down. And 9 times out of 10 they'll say to me, "Momma, I was not using a kind voice. I'm really sorry."

 

And the more I acknowledge and apologize for my faults, the more I fix them. There was a time I was apologizing daily, sometimes multiple times a day, for being just a tad too curt. Now I go whole weeks without getting snappy because I realize that's a fault of mine and I've worked on finding ways to help regulate my own emotions in tense situations.

 

Sometimes I wonder if I've damaged my kids too terribly by all my mistakes. Then I look at them and I'm all, "Nah. They're so amazing."

 

I will always make mistakes, no doubt. I'm really good at that, ha. But I seem to make fewer as time goes on. At least I seem to repeat the same mistakes less frequently. So the mistakes I make now are all new.

 

So I'm not teaching them that sorry will fix things. I'm helping to teach that it is important to acknowledge and address your poor behavior, but then work on it so that you're not in a position where you need to apologize again. But, if they are, I will always show them the same grace they show me. Because never have I apologized to my kids and have had them say, "Well, too bad, too sad. The damage is done and you suck." Usually H will say, "I know you're frustrated. I shouldn't have been screaming at you like that either. Let's do something that makes us feel happy." So I at least think it's working.

 

And by apologizing to my kids, I've learned to lighten up. I'm of the perfectionist personality, but telling them I'm sorry and admitting my own faults helps me to not focus on all the potential damage I might be doing to them, as odd as that may seem. Instead I just get to focus on growing and learning with them, knowing that they have a mom that isn't perfect, so it's okay for them to not be perfect, too.

 

Don't get me wrong. Sometimes I still get a little scared, thinking about those dark months when I had PPD. I wonder what kind of damage I could have done to H. I like to think I hid that raincloud well. I still wore my babies daily, often together. I rocked them and tandem nursed them, and read stories and played. but sometimes I wonder, even though she was just a tiny toddler, if she saw that raincloud, too. If she felt it.

 

And then I remind myself that I'm a really kick ass mom so even if she did, we've long since come through that. She's a stellar kid and doesn't seem to have any lingering affects from those months (unless preciousness is an affect, ha).

 

We're open. We talk. She addresses her feelings without issue.

 

Right after Thanksgiving when my parents and sister were getting ready to leave to drive back north, H was acting out. And she outright told my sister M, "I'm really mad and sad that you're leaving. That's why I'm not being nice."

 

So we're getting there.

 

Slowly but surely.

 

We say please around here a lot, but we say sorry more. Way more. And for us, it's more important anyway.