BROKEN
How I Broke the Cycle of Parental Rage, and 5 Helpful Things to Say When a Child (or Adult) Breaks Something (Dish, Heart, Toy, or Promise).
My mother was a teenager when I was born, and her parents raised me. She didn’t see me as her daughter, she saw me as competition for the attention of her parents. She was a drug addict. She didn’t know how to be kind to herself; and so as a result, she didn’t know how to be kind to me. Her cutting words and endless anger built an impenetrable wall of rage. I worked to heal the hurt she caused by building a wall of love; one brick at a time, I chose how to be a mother by being the opposite of everything my mother was to me. I’m still human, therefore I still make mistakes; but the difference is that I’ve learned how to be accountable for my mistakes. I’ve learned that the best way to be consistently kind to others is to be consistently kind to myself.
My daughter was only three years old when she broke my cherished music box. It was a material possession I had infused with entirely too much importance. A ceramic harp with mini mouse playing, “When You Wish Upon A Star Your Dreams Come True.” It was the only gift chosen by both of my grandparents, and I’d had it for many years. When it broke, it felt symbolic, as if my dreams, which had yet to come true, had broken too. The first time it was damaged, it was just a few clean breaks; and it was easy enough to repair. My reaction was a gasp and some tears, which startled my precious toddler and left me feeling guilty.
Once the music box was repaired, I placed it out of reach thinking I was protecting it. A year later, when my daughter was four and stuck inside because of a severe snow day, she tossed a ball in the air, it hit the music box and pieces shattered everywhere. This time, it was beyond repair. I was angry. We had agreements about not throwing things in the house (holding young children to expectations seems reasonable at the time and ridiculous in retrospect). They are children—making mistakes is how they learn.
When I was a child I pulled a pan from the oven without an oven mitt and severely burned my hand. An echo of my mother’s voice replayed in my head. Through gritted teeth and with an enraged tone, she called me a klutz, a Yiddish word for a clumsy, awkward, or foolish person. In that moment with my daughter and ceramic dust at my feet, I felt mother anger—that cellular memory of one’s own mother’s anger directed at self now being transferred to one’s child—that moment of realization that our mother’s words will fly from our mouth if we’re not careful to filter our feelings first. With an epigenetic arrow, the word “klutz” forced itself in my mouth…but I chewed at it until it was gone, so that my daughter would not hear it…so that with the grace of mindfulness, I might break the cycle of rage.
I remembered how the label of “klutz” made me feel bad about myself whereas the label of teachers calling me “kind” or “gifted” made me feel good about myself. The words we use to describe our children become their crowns of identity. A dozen tiaras from teachers could not erase a single dunce cap from a parent. I stood in that space of shattered pieces—music box and memories, and took in a long breath and exhaled resigned tears. I didn’t want to hold my tongue with my daughter, I wanted to learn how to use it wisely. I thought about the power of my words before I let them spring from my lips because words have impact.
My empathic child looked up at me with tears in her own eyes, reached her precious, tiny arms out to me, and said, “I’m sorry, Mommy.” Her warmth began to melt the word “klutz” unspoken, but still lingering in the space between us. I kneeled down and embraced my daughter saying, “I know honey. I’m sorry too. Accidents happen.”
When the music box was broken for a second time, I was sad, not because the material possession was gone, but because it forced me to recognize the painful truth of impermanence—of what it means to live with the discomfort of not being able to control, manage, and protect everything we hold dear. Once we are able to establish and balance that which is within our control (our thoughts, words, and deeds) with that which is not within our control (the thoughts, words, and deeds of others), we can allow ourselves to find the humor and compassion in life’s messiness, make gentle play out of small pains, and laugh at ourselves.
During a winter holiday break (pun intended) children may be spending more time at home playing indoors, maybe even helping with chores, which could increase the likelihood of things breaking. Punishment and reacting in anger teaches shame and encourages others to hide their mistakes and lie about them. Normalizing mistakes teaches us all how to process, repair, and move on. Peaceful, playful, patient parenting is easier on everyone involved, whether we are parenting our children or ourselves.
Here are the five helpful things we as a family, consciously choose to say in the aftermath of something breaking.
1. Accidents happen.
We remind our loved one (and ourselves) that human beings are imperfect. We make mistakes. This is how we learn. We can say, “Congratulate yourself; you’ve just proven that you’re human.” In our family, when we stumble and fall, we joke “Just testing gravity,” or something my papa was fond of saying, “Have a nice trip? See you next fall;” and we laugh it off and fix what we can, accept what we can’t fix, and move on with our lives.
2. Are you okay?
This is to assess any damage, from the cut of a broken glass to the wound of a broken heart. If they say, “No, I’m not okay,” we can offer to help through presence alone or by actions of care. If they say, “Yes, I’m okay,” we can celebrate their resilience and still offer condolences or comfort. In this way, they know they can seek solace from others, even when they can handle things on their own. When we have a witness to the process of our pain, we often heal faster—we become the tree that falls in the forest and does make a sound. When we feel invisible, we can stay hidden and stuck in the muck. When we feel seen and heard, our light radiates; and we bloom like a lotus flower. This is the gift of self-forgiveness.
3. Do you need help cleaning up the broken pieces (or comfort from the startle)?
When we ask before swooping in to help, we give our children the honor of showing up for themselves, whilst knowing they are not alone and can ask for help if they need it. If they choose not to accept our help, they learn self-reliance; and they will teach that through example to those around them.
If they take us up on our offer and allow us to give them a comforting hug, or a hand in the cleanup process, they feel the compassion of empathy and less alone in their mistake. They learn the value of the proverb, “many hands make light work” and how to show up for others in need without lecture—and in service only.
4. Opa!
(This works to lighten the mood, if the child feels remorseful and sad and you know that a lighthearted “opa” won’t encourage them to break more things). My Grandparents had a great sense of humor. When he got food on his shirt my papa would say, “Dinner’s on me!” When my grandmother missed her mouth and spilled her drink, she would joke, “Oops, my chin is leaking again!” and we’d all laugh our mistakes off. Parenting with a sense of humor teaches us how to laugh at ourselves. As my grandparents aged, they began to have more spills; and I’d make the same jokes with them that they made with me, and it made the process of loss more tolerable. If we’re lucky, we will get the opportunity to lovingly parent the ones who lovingly parented us. We acknowledged those moments of role reversals with mindful humility. When we learn how to offer ourselves grace, we learn how to offer grace to others.
5. We all make mistakes.
We can ask our loved ones to please not spend time feeling bad about themselves or name-calling and labeling themselves as bad. We practice saying, “If you can think of any way this could have been avoided with more care, see this as a lesson on how to prevent things from breaking. If you can’t think of any way this could have been avoided, see this as a lesson on impermanence and natural consequence. In the end, it’s just a thing. Even if it’s a special priceless heirloom or something that took us a long time to make, it’s still just a thing; and everything eventually breaks, in some way. Sometimes we have to pay for the things we break, and it teaches us to be more careful; and sometimes, things just break. Life goes on. Relationships matter more than things. Kindness expressed and received feels better than any possession ever could.”
Life is filled with breaks: good breaks, bad breaks, and “them’s just the breaks.” When our children know this, they don’t have to fear failure, mistakes, or stumbles. They don’t have to think of themselves with labels like “accident prone,” “klutz,” or “clumsy.” They simply learn how to roll with the punches, so to speak, with as much levity and mercy as possible, and to enjoy this wonderful journey we call life.
Post Script: In November I mentioned some good news I was excited to share and planned to do so this month. However, the way of life is balance. In the midst of processing good, we have also been sorting through challenges. I’m looking forward to sharing all news when the time is appropriate. Thank you for reading and sharing my words.
Sage Justice is achingly sincere. Balancing wisdom and humor she most often writes deeply personal solution based pieces about the enduring virtues that connect us all: love and healing. She is an award-winning playwright and critically acclaimed performing artist who has appeared on stages from Madison Square Garden in New York City, to The Comedy Store in Hollywood, California. Ms. Justice is the author of Sage Words FREEDOM Book One, an activist, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and an alumna Artist-In-Residence of Chateau Orquevaux, France. She is a co-founder of The Unity Project which fuses activism with art, to educate and inspire, with a special emphasis on community engagement to end homelessness. She has a series of short reels about living with the rare genetic disorder, Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that you can find in a highlight reel on her Instagram page @SageWords2027.