Let Her Feel

She said she “thinks she hates me." She said I'm “not the best mom ever”—that I'm “a bad, bad mom."

I said nothing. I let her vent.

"You're making me really mad,” she said, “I don't understand why you're treating me like this. You're being really mean, and I really do think I hate you, and that I don't love you."

I let her have her feelings. She's entitled to them, after all.

After posting her rants on Snapchat, my followers were shocked! “I can't believe you let her say all those things to you." Well, it's how she felt. Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I want my child to express her feelings to me?

Truth be told, it downloaded a much heavier point to me. Not only do we want to suppress the raw emotion of our children, we want to do it to our peers, as well. We do our best to prevent others from having emotions that don't align with our own. It's selfish and insensitive.

Even worse, we suppress our own emotions out of fear of how they’ll be received. The opportunities we lose as a result of this controlling behavior is enough to turn your stomach. Misunderstandings, oversight and dismissal of truth—all due to fear. It’s so sad.

Instead, I encourage you to feel your feelings, and let others feel theirs. You are only responsible for two things: yourself and how you react to what is brought to you. Everything else is a myth. In other words, we have no control over any other aspects of our lives.

So why do we try so hard to control the uncontrollable?

I’ve encouraged my daughter, Bee, to express herself, in the midst of her anger, respectfully. After all, those are the only things she’s responsible for: herself and her delivery. Packaging her emotions was not required. Not hurting my feelings with her truth was just not relevant to me at the time. True, I can't pretend she didn't sting me a little with the "I hate you" line, but she's not responsible for how I feel about how she feels—she's only responsible for her truth.

I've taken a note from my bumble bee on this one. No fear, all truth. If it hurts a little, that's okay. I'd take bitter truth over sweet lies any day.

A huge thank you to J’Hanna for sharing her words with our community! Have some thoughts to share with J’Hanna? Leave a comment below!