Yelling doesn't make you a bad mum

Rachel Corbett: 00:00:02

Hello there. Gosh, it's been a little longer between drinks than I thought it might be. Sorry about that.

Life did get in the way somewhat, and I just couldn't do it all. But here I am back again, a little longer than I told you I'd be, but I'm still here.

And I'm going to be hopefully doing a bunch more episodes this season before taking another little break again, you know, because I want to keep this show going, but I also don't want to lose my mind. So that's where I'm at today. I've got a question from Annelise.

If you want to submit a question, you can do that at the link in the description of the episode. This one's a doozy. Real curly one.

Annalise says, I'm a solo mum and I wanted to know how you handle the all consuming, overwhelming anger that can rise up when you've got no escape and no tap out. I've been trying so hard not to yell, but I just think it's impossible. Keen to know what if you feel this too. Do I? Do I what?

Annalise, this is something that I have thought so much about because I have tried so desperately to be a parent who doesn't yell at all. And what an unreasonable amount of pressure to put on yourself is what I've realized.

And part of it is because it's interesting, my kid really became very hard to manage just around that two phase where, no surprise, right? Oh, Shakara, you got a difficult two year old. Yes. Right. It happens to everybody. But she had been up to that point. Yes, it was hard.

I'm doing it on my own, of course it's hard. But she wasn't like a boundary pusher. She was a very obedient kid.

So when she sort of realized, oh, my goodness, I don't need to do what you tell me to do all the time, then she really leaned into that and took it to another level. So I was kind of dealing with the whiplash of, like, who are you exactly? Where did this person come from? And then also the difficulty of.

Of trying to set really firm boundaries, because I'm a boundary person and I feel like having done this for only a short period of time.

One thing I can say with absolute, concrete certainty is that I can see the benefit of boundaries every single time I push through the pain of setting them in place. They're really hard to hold firm sometimes, but after you hold them firm and they become a boundary that is recognized. Olivia loves it.

She really thrives in an environment where she knows this leads to that or that's what we do. And this is, you know, so setting those boundaries in place has been a massive thing for me and I'm really glad I've done it.

I'm not a pushover, mum, but I am definitely someone who wants to respect her intelligence. Even though people are like, she's only two, you're the boss. She is really a person. Like, let's be clear, I want to. To take her along with the.

On the journey with me. Yes, I'm the parent. Yes, I'm the boss, but I want to explain as much as I can to her and I also want her input on things. Right.

So I want to understand why she's doing something. Now. Can she communicate that to me sometimes? No, she can't. But I'm going to do my best to do that in the process. And then what's firm is firm.

But this becomes really hard when they start to really just enjoy that word no.

And then all of the stuff that you kind of trying to use in your grab bag to make sure that you can get from A to B or get to bedtime or do any of the things that you need to do at a certain point, you've used every single thing you got at your disposal and the only thing you got left is a little bit of volume. And so that's what you do. And every single time I would yell, I would feel utterly terrible.

I would always apologize to her after it happened, explain why it happened. You know, say you really push Mummy's buttons. You were trying to, you know, get a rise out of me. You did get a rise out of me. I reacted.

I'm sorry I reacted, but I got really frustrated.

And it's interesting when they start to use your terms of phrase, because now she will say, I'm pushing Mommy's buttons, especially in the car and the car seat now. I mean, she went from hating that car seat. I lived through that time, which was just an utter punish.

Now we're in the time where we're like, I know I could get in the car seat, but I could also just play around in the car for an hour. And then anytime you try and put me in the car seat, have a meltdown that's so colossal that you just won't even want to do it.

So you'll just wait for me to come to this in my own time, which may mean it takes us an hour to get in the car and you're just going to have to Deal with it. No, I defy anybody to get through situations like that without yelling. It's impossible. And I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to. To a.

Not yell. And I get why that is. Do you want to have a parent that yells all the time? Do we have parents that yell all the time? Yes.

Do you want to be better than that? A hundred percent.

But I think if you are trying your absolute best to do that and to do all of the things that you need to try and have a well adjusted, safe, comfortable human. And then occasionally you blow your lid because you're on your own and you've got absolutely no tap out.

And it's not like when you are 9, 10 into the nighttime routine and we're installing. I mean, I'll talk. We'll have a whole another episode on stalling. Holy guacamole. That is just. I mean, you want to test your patience and it's so.

Oh, anyway, I'll save that for another episode.

But if you are an hour and a half into a nighttime routine and you are still not out that goddamn door with it shut, I defy anybody to get through that and not yell.

You can't say to somebody, hey, excuse me, I'm gonna have to step into the next room, have a mental breakdown, and then I can come back in and do the pat, pat and the kiss goodnight, but you're gonna have to just let me step away. No, no, no. You have to have that mental breakdown internally while you're still trying to manage the bedtime routine.

And so if a little bit of that mental breakdown seeps out, I mean, sorry, what am I, Superwoman? Give me a break. I feel like the pressure that you put on yourself to, like, don't let your lid blow. Don't you let your lid blow.

And meanwhile, internally, like my synapses or synapses or however you say it, they have never fired so hard in like, I am on fire and like, ready to burn kind of way than through this process of parenting. And I often think, like, I'm a very emotionally regulated person. I don't yell at all in my life, anywhere.

I don't have relationships in my life where I get to the point where I'm yelling. If I had somebody that triggered me in that way, I just wouldn't have them in my life. I don't feel like that's my natural position.

In fact, when I get met with things that I find frustrating or that really make me sort of, that should switch on that anger mode, I often laugh Because I'm just like, are you serious? You know?

So it's interesting for me because I feel to myself like, if you do have trouble getting your anger under control, how do you parent without yelling like every second?

Because it is a real mental gymnastics game to keep that under wraps when you are dealing with the most irrational, illogical, like, person you've ever dealt with in your life.

I remember not too long before Olivia turned two, when there was someone in my orbit who was watching an influencer video of an influencer who was sharing that she had gotten to the point where she was so angry at her kid that she screamed and she was really feeling embarrassed about it and frustrated. And this person who doesn't have any children said, why would you ever admit that? And I thought, and herein lies our problem.

Because none of us are allowed to say unless we offer up the 55 minute preamble of I love my children so much and I'm trying my best to be a mother who, blah, blah, blah.

You feel like you have to over explain the fact that you're not a serial killer who's been put in charge of a child and that then you can sort of say sheepishly, oh, my goodness. But I accidentally yell, but I know, like, let's just lean into it.

Honestly, I, I got to a point over one to two transition period where I went from hating myself for yelling and absolute kicking myself for it to get real comfy with it. Getting real comfy with it.

I was like, okay, right, let's just realize if I get through a day without yelling, it's been a good day, you know, because this is going to happen. This is going to happen. And when it happens, I'm going to apologize to her and I'm going to explain to her why I did it.

And I'm going to demonstrate that you can have these emotions and that you can deal with them in a, in a good way.

But I'm just going to cut myself some slack that if the boundary has been pushed to the point where I can no longer do anything to maintain the boundary but tell her no in quite a loud fashion, then I'm just going to do that. And I think she's having a mental breakdown every five seconds in front of me and I'm sitting there doing what they tell you to do.

I'm down at her level, she's screaming in my face. I'm calmly saying to her with my arms wide open, do you want to cuddle? It's okay that you feel this way. I know it's very overwhelming. It's okay.

And eventually that actually does work, you know, like this. She screams, scream, screams. And then eventually, usually when I say when she's like, no, no, no. And then I can, okay, I won't give you a cuddle.

And she goes cuddle. And then we're sort of through the other side, I think nobody's cuddling me.

When I'm having a mental breakdown, I'm sitting there apologizing, I'm sorry, I've done this. I'm like, when she turned around, giving me a pat, pat, pat, and goes, okay, I know you feel this way. It's frustrating. I'm a pain in the ass.

I don't know how you deal with me. You know, if she really cared about me, then that's what she would be doing. But that's not what's happening.

Instead, I'm just here trying not to lose my lid at every goddamn turn. And also then trying not to beat myself up if I do lose my lid, because it's just going to happen.

Interestingly, after the sort of one to two transition, I don't know if I'm just more used to it now and whether it was just that change where you're just like, what's this? Wow, this is horrible. Or whether you get more coping mechanisms or you start to work out, okay, I know how to manage this now.

And so it gets a bit more manageable. I find actually that I'm back to not really yelling much anymore, but certainly through that period.

And I'm sure, you know, when they move into the three Nager and, you know, like, it goes in waves. Who knows? This stuff comes and goes. It's not like it's over. You know, one problem ends and then another problem begins.

There was a time there literally where I felt like I have never yelled this much in my entire life. But now I feel like I'm kind of through the other side of it.

And I think the next phase that I go into where she does push me to yell, it's interesting because I have enough in my. Of that feeling in my body about what it feels like to yell at her. And I hate it. I hate it. I feel bad for it. I don't like the way it makes her feel.

While I do try and explain myself to her and all of those kind of things, I don't like doing it. So that's a really good thing for me, to sort of stop me in the moment when I am getting to that point where my blood is boiling.

But I think that thing that people say about just step out of the room when you are by yourself, that is very hard because there are certain situations that you can't step out of the room. And I don't want to. You know, if she's upset or screaming and I'm about to have a mental breakdown, I get it, right?

It would be better for me to close the door, and I don't want to close the door and leave her in there. I don't want to do that. I don't want to walk out like that if somebody was there with her. I'm not saying that that's.

That that's a problem to do generally, but I just don't want to do that. So I want. I want to try and be there. So I don't know, would it be better if I walked out, screamed into a pillow, and came back?

But then I feel like she gets upset then and that I've left her. Oh, God Almighty. It is just impossible, isn't it?

Like, how are we supposed to do this in a manner that doesn't make us feel all sorts of ways about ourselves, but then we beat ourselves up about this stuff that we should just be fine with? So. Annalise, I get it. Be okay with it.

You know, sometimes you're going to yell if you're doing your absolute best and you love your kid and you're trying to do everything you can for them, and sometimes they're just such an a hole that you're like, I am going to say some words really loudly. Just do it. Apologize for it, move through it, get on with it. But, like, be okay with doing it. And to the people that.

Especially the ones that don't have kids and see people talking about this and go, oh, I'd never do that. You will. You will.

I tell you right now, you'll think all things about, manner of things about yourself before you have a child, and then when you get into having that child, you'll think to yourself, wow, none of this stuff would I have thought that I would have done, but here I am doing it all. So, yeah, it's a. It's a real personality crisis that we all roll through, but we just got to kind of embrace.

So thank you so much for the question, Annelise. I hope you feel better about that. I hope that the people in your life are also telling you it's okay to yell, because I started to talk.

I was really ashamed to talk about it, honestly. And then I started to talk to a friends of mine about it. And they were like, oh God, I can't get through the day without yelling this.

I've yelled, gosh, some of the stuff that I've done. And I'm like, oh, thank God. Thank God it's not just me. And I know it's not just me, but also you just feel so shameful, Feel so.

Like you haven't kept it together enough and you haven't done it and you're just like, but cut yourself some slack. You're doing it on your own, so it's going to be hard. And it's okay if that manifests in ways that you're not necessarily always proud of.

If you would like to leave a question, then just head to the description of the episode. There's a link there. Thank you so much for listening. It is lovely to be back. I'm really glad to be doing the show again.

Send on through all your communications too. I love hearing from you. So lovely to hear what your stories are. If you're doing this on your own or.

I've had a lot of emails from people who are thinking about doing it on their own as well. And yeah, it's. It's really, really cool because what a great thing to do.

I still, no matter all the yelling, all the frustration, all of the no tap out, I'm like, this is absolutely the right choice for me. Like, truly the best decision I ever made. Even if it means that I'm like ready to lose my mind about 50 times a day. But you know what?

It's all part of the rich tapestry of parenting. Why do we do this? Anyway, I'll see you next week.