Parenting can be an emotional roller coaster

In grad school there were days when the pressure would be about perfect if you needed something unhinged.

You might think that those of us with children, on top of the academic stress, would have it worse than those who didn’t. In some ways it was harder, but in others it was our salvation. Going home to a little person who runs up the second you walk through the door, hugs you and begs to be read a story, well, it puts things in perspective. All the worries that seemed so big and important just get smaller and smaller, like Shrinky Dinks in a hot oven.

A friend of mine shared a story with me recently, and I think it relates. He had a finished basement where he worked and where his toddler spent time crawling around, rolling on the carpet, playing with toys and generally doing toddler-style activities. One night, alone in the basement office, he was working on his computer and hadn’t saved in a while. I bet you know what’s coming next. His computer crashed, and he lost a bunch of work, and then he lost his temper … completely.

“Seeing red, I grabbed a small mirror that happened to be in the basement and smashed it against the wall, wherein a thousand big, medium and very small shards went flying around the room, some obviously nestling in the carpet. It didn’t take long to realize, sadly, that even though I could pick up most of the visible ones easily, my young daughter would be crawling around on those micro-shards. I then spent about an hour vacuuming the floor, and cross-vacuuming, to make sure I got every last piece of the mirror off the floor.”

When he told me this story, I could almost feel the emotional shift he must have gone through, almost hear his fit of rage transformed into resignation and then painstaking domestic toil. It sounded a lot like Shrinky Dinks on a preheated pan. I mean, it’s seriously humbling how a little child can take a problem that’s overwhelming an adult and, without even trying, reduce it to one-third its original size, perfect for making into jewelry or a fridge magnet.