I was four when someone called me a bitch for the first time.
You might be thinking: what the hell did I just read – and I have to say, just writing that opening sentence down made me tense up in remembered distress.
Please allow me to add some context to this incident:
Mum had eight children underfoot and never seemed to stop cleaning. All too easily, one can imagine how much mess ten people can create when sharing the same living space week in and week out. Dad was out working each day, and that meant he wasn’t home until the evening, which was right around the time dinner was set out on the table and waiting for him.
I don’t begrudge the fact that Dad had dinners waiting for him each evening; he worked hard to ensure we all had enough to eat and continued to have a roof over our heads as we grew up. He worked hard to ensure we had an education. (No matter what others might say, an education in Ireland is not free for all people up to the age of sixteen. Not when parents have to fork out annually, for uniforms and expensive books and fees. Ireland has a strange definition of free. But that is a different discussion.)
However, his absence also meant that Mum was running the house alone.
One can imagine how impressionable I was at the tender age of four. Not to mention how eager to help I was – as countless children are at that age. It doesn’t matter whether that help is a hindrance or not: the intention to help is what matters in those situations.
Mum was running herself ragged with cooking and cleaning, and I wanted to help in some way, even though I wasn’t sure how to do that as well as I could. I didn’t think to ask how. I spent several moments standing around and thinking, and then I remembered that she’d used a sweeping brush and a cloth to dust those hard-to-reach places. That was something I could do – with some help.
I dragged a sibling into the matter.
(She was two.)
We retrieved the sweeping brush and went into the living room together. I stood at the front because the idea had been mine and I was older, stronger, and all those other qualities that elder siblings claim for themselves. Our grip on the sweeping brush wobbling and wavering continuously, we stretched it upwards and began polishing the ornaments on the shelves overhead.
You can imagine what happened next.
We knocked a unicorn figurine – it had been a gift from a French foreign exchange student that lived in our house while she was in Ireland and Mum had loved it a lot – and it shattered on the floor.
Familiar footsteps came thundering and Mum soon stood in the doorway, gaping at the shattered remains of her unicorn. Then the anger surged like a storm. I remember her face turning red as she started shouting, “Ye little bitches!”
Mum had to be held back from going for us.
Don’t get me wrong: I get it.
Having spent countless weekends minding children for other members of the family, I understand that growing children are frustrating, and can test tempers and patience for hours without end. Sometimes we feel like Homer Simpson is a good metaphor for when children are at their brattiest and most aggravating, but most people know that turning around and strangling a child out of sheer frustration or upset isn’t a justified course of action in the least.
But shouting, and shouting foul language in particular, at children isn’t justified either.
We didn’t set out to break the unicorn on purpose and hurling foul language wouldn’t be necessary, even if we had done so. We were at a tender age and didn’t know better. We didn’t understand enough to grasp the fact that Mum never used a sweeping brush to polish shelves and used it instead to reach cobwebs near the ceiling. It was an error born out of complete incomprehension of natural consequences on our parts.
I learned nothing from the experience except that feeling sheer terror is the subsequent reaction to doing something wrong, and I’m not just referring to the moral sense of the word. I learned that rage and insulting language is the result of making a mistake.
It was a lesson compounded through countless other incidents of shouting, of which Dad was often at the centre.
Over two decades later, I still struggle to withhold tears in front of people that start shouting at or near me. Sometimes I struggle to keep breathing when it happens. Anxieties start acting up whenever people show rising or sudden signs of anger around me. I’m terrified of making mistakes – even ones made with the best of intentions.
What I’m talking about isn’t a secret: the effects of shouting at children have been studied in the past.
In March 2016, Daniela Ginta wrote an article for health-line on this exact subject. Ginta offers several alternatives that could be used when attempting to teach children what makes their behaviour incorrect.
I would recommend reading the article to all people considering having children in the future and to people who have children already; parenting is a learning curve for parents and children alike and as long as parents are willing, it’s never too late to learn.
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