A friend of mine sent me this New York Times article that I find both amusing and true. The basic gist is that our generation of parents generally doesn’t spank, but to get our kids to behave, we resort to hollering at them.
We’re not spankers in our house. My parents didn’t spank. My husband’s did in a calm, deliberate sort of way. And rarely. I’m not saying that we judge spankers because I’ve heard reasonable arguments for spanking under specific circumstances. It’s a personal choice for parents.
You know, unless “spanking” really means “beating” your kids out of anger. We are pretty judgmental about that, I have to say. And I can’t stand watching people haul off and hit their kids in public.
This article, though, talks about how parents today realize that it’s less socially acceptable to smack their kids, so they try other “tools” like time outs and taking away video games.
But when all else fails and, let’s face it, we’re exhausted and over tasked, even great mothers lose their crap. And once the heat of the moment cools, the horrible guilt begins.
This doesn’t happen to me often and the more seasoned I become as a mom, it happens less frequently. But it happens.
I’ve never said or screamed anything that I think would be scarring or truly hurtful, but I know damage is done regardless.
Most of the time when it happens to me, it’s because I’m dealing with some crisis with the baby, who is crying loudly in my ear, and my daughter enters the room wanting something.
Last night, she wanted “the funny-shaped spoon.” That’s it. It wasn’t like she needed to understand her place in the world or why some children don’t have daddies. She wanted a spoon. But she’s 3. And when you’re 3, you don’t notice that your baby brother is screaming and perilously close to falling off the changing table and that his poopy diaper is inches from mommy’s white blouse.
So I snapped at her. I didn’t say anything hateful. I didn’t tell her to shut up. I told her to be quiet and to leave the room until Benny stopped crying. Well, that got her wailing too. She threw herself onto the floor in the hall and bellowed, “But I just want to cuddle! I don’t want to be lonely!!”
Oof. Sucker punch. I was instantly a horrible mother. One with a poop-smeared shirt.
I finished changing Benny, put him in a safe place and marched Sophie into timeout.
Once she calmed down, I explained to her that she needed to try harder to wait her turn and needed to try harder not to cry when she doesn’t get what she wants. She seemed to understand as I dried her tears and hugged her.
But she also seemed tired. We both were.
She asked me if I was mad at her. Another punch in the gut.
No, I told her. And then I did something that I know a lot of parenting experts say you should never do. I apologized. I told her I was sorry that I lost my temper and raised my voice.
I asked her to be my helper and told her that if we worked together mommy would yell less and she would have fewer time outs.
I have no idea if this will work, but she seemed satisfied. And we both went to bed feeling like no permanent damage was done.
Except maybe to my blouse.
Cindy Murphy is a special projects reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She and her husband, who is also a reporter, have a 4-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son. They live in Little Rock. 
I know this is crazy. But when I’m getting frazzled because they are both crying etc., I will put them both down (even when they are crying), tell them Mommy Needs a Time Out. I then sit down on the couch, close my eyes, and think about their cute faces and take a deep breath and start again.