How Embarrassing!!!



by January Handl

I’ve heard it said at many times and in many ways…if you have children you can pretty much guarantee that you are in for some episodes of excruciating embarrassment. No matter how much we try to detach from our children’s behaviors and choices, at one time or another, they will say or do something that leaves us blushing, stammering and wishing for a quick place to hide.

With my daughter, I’ll never forget her announcing in a grocery store restroom, at the top of her voice (it seemed to me) “ Mommy, are you having diarrhea?” Though she didn’t understand my hushing her, I waited until the bathroom cleared before venturing out of my stall and explaining to her that my bodily functions were not for public knowledge. But I to this day cannot explain why human beings find one of the few things we all have in common something to laugh at, make jokes about, hide, and find devastatingly humiliating.

With my son, he was and still is, a person with a lot to offer to any group discussion. In preschool, at every group time, his hand would be up at least 3-4 times. And some of his innocent observations could make me blush furiously or want to escape. One day, after watching me trying desperately to get him to put his hand down, the teacher gave me a gift. She took me aside and said, basically, that I would have plenty in my own choices and actions to be embarrassed by, and that I needn’t spend so much time being embarrassed by my young children’s actions.

Now, that is sage advice, but as with so many things in parenting, easier said than done. But it was the beginning of my journey of letting go. If the people in the grocery store witnessing my generally well-behaved child’s melt down didn’t understand that my child had held up all day, that this was one of those “just one more errand” pushes, that I was ignoring it, because that was better than anything else I could think of at the moment, then I would just have to keep the phrase “ I’ll probably never see these people again” going in my mind, until we got through the checkout stand. If my in-laws would “never have put up with that kind of back talk from their kids”, I would learn to grit my teeth, smile and nod, and remind myself of the lack of relationship they continue to have with their own grown children. If a friend, after keeping my children for me while I finally accomplished something, greeted me with “ so your husband sleeps in the nude…” I would laugh with her, and explain later to my children why all family traditions are not shared freely with others.

And little by little, I’ve learned that my children are not me. My heart is with them always, I want to give them the best that I have, I want them to be functional, emotionally competent, socially responsible people who know how to get through hard times and appreciate all that they have, AND A LOT OF THAT IS NOT IN MY CONTROL! They are born with their own unique temperament and tendencies, their own free will and choice, their own perspective on any given situation. The bad news is that means that I cannot take complete credit for any grand accomplishments that they achieve. The good news is, I don’t have to take complete blame if they choose differently than I would have them choose.

I’ve also found that the moment I judge someone else’s parenting, my own children would exhibit the behavior I had been so quick to notice in that other parent’s child. I’ve grown to have great compassion for parents in those awful, public moments, when being a parent brings about a humbleness we might otherwise have never known. And the best news is that when they become adolescents its pay back time- they are perpetually embarrassed by your very existence!