When Britney Spears’ ex-husband released videos of her yelling in frustration at her children last week, every mother I know – and countless mothers I don’t – suffered emotional whiplash. ‘That’s it?’ we thought of what we saw in the videos. If our worst parenting moments were broadcast to the world, people would recoil as though splashed by hot oil.
“If someone was going to say that was my worst parenting moment” – says one mother of three I know, referring to how Spears behaves in the videos – “[I’d say] please share it, go to CNN, thank you very much. If that’s the worst you’ve got on me, that makes me look good.”
“There’s being rude then there’s being HATEFUL,” Britney Spears recently wrote on Instagram about her now-teenage sons, Jayden James Federline, (left), and Sean Preston Federline (right), pictured in 2013.Credit:Getty Images
If our biggest parenting fails were broadcast to the world, people would assume we were horrible parents.
So, the viral videos.
In one, Spears is seen reprimanding one of her sons for entering a store barefoot, saying: “I’m shocked as f–k with you and I don’t know what to do.” In another, she threatens to take away her son’s phone, and entreats her sons to respect her. “This is my house… You all need to start treating me like a woman with worth,” she says. “I am a woman, okay, be nice to me, do you understand?”
“This isn’t even the worst of it,” Spears’ ex-husband Kevin Federline wrote on Instagram next to the since-deleted videos, taken when their children were 11 and 12. He seems to have released them as a way of showing what a bad mother Spears is, and that this is why, according to him, her sons have not wanted to see her for a few months. “The lies have to stop,” he wrote, reportedly in response to comments Spears had made on social media that her sons, who are now 15 and 16, have behaved in a “rude” and “hateful” manner when they visited her. “I hope our kids grow up to be better than this.”
Many on social media agreed. “This is not the way to parent… She’s the so-called grown-up,” wrote one person. “Or is she??”
Cue the collective jaw dropping from those of us parents who would without a second thought jump in front of a bus for our kids and who pour love on our children like the sun bathes the flowers, but who have, nevertheless – as a result of the relentless demands of parenting – lost our lolly in ways that make Britney Spears look like Mary Poppins.
I’ve racked up so many parenting fails in 16 years of parenting, that they could have their own categorisation system, like the Dewey decimal system used by state libraries.
Under “Tantrums, mine”, there’d be, among so many others: “Person with feelings!, me”; “eye-rolling, mine” and “Connect 4; chucked”.
My swearing would also require sub-categories: Car, in the; Small children, in front of; Parent-teacher meetings, one.
That time a daycare staffer pulled me over at pick-up time to tell me that my three-year-old had said “Motherf—er”? It would take multiple paragraphs, including the observation from my husband – after I’d wondered, incredulously, where my kid could possibly have learned the word – that our cherub had learned the word from me, during frustrated outbursts at home when my kids were in earshot.
But I was lucky that no one broadcast that on national television. Because people heap scorn on those who have momentary parenting fails.
One friend wasn’t so lucky. When her mother heard what her 15-month-old son said when he accidentally knocked over his water bottle in his high chair – ‘F——-—ck’ – she was not impressed. “She was absolutely appalled. Disgusted.” In an even worse moment, my friend karate chopped her kids’ painstakingly created lego build.
So Federline’s videos, rather than turn Spears into another trailer-trash punchline, as seems to have been his intention, have instead made so many mothers, including myself, feel less alone.
Is it great that we sometimes frighten our children, wreck their toys and teach them to swear? Obviously not.
But these moments do not sum up who we are as parents.
As psychotherapist F Diane Barth has written on NBCnews.com, referring to the Spears’ videos and the concern she hears from many parents that they’re “never getting it right”: “I imagine that there are very few parents who have not had a meltdown at some point or another… Yelling, name-calling and hurtful words can do psychological damage. But there are also some instances in which parents do not need to worry that yelling has damaged their kids. For example, when it is an unusual occurrence and when there’s space for the genuine repair of the rupture between parent and child.”
Abuse and maltreatment of children by parents, Barth adds, is a serious problem globally, and can lead to serious consequences.
“[But] an occasional bout of bad parenting is a normal part of life,” she writes, noting that diagnosing abuse isn’t as easy as witnessing a few bad moments between a parent and their children. “And perhaps even more significantly, both children and parents can learn from these moments of imperfection. Learning that their parents are human, with all the flaws and blemishes that go along with the condition is a crucial part of a child’s developmental process.”
We don’t know the circumstances of Spears’ interactions with her sons, and whether they’ve had a chance to repair any damage done.
But the guilt so many parents feel about their spontaneous outbursts – and the scorn that’s heaped on them because of them – isn’t helping parents or their children.
“Every second of every day, I’m thinking about what I could have done differently, and how I wish there was a time machine,” says my friend who says her worst parenting moments are far worse than what’s shown in the Spears’ videos. “Which of course is so counter-productive. I really should be focussing on improving my behaviour in the future.”
So, here’s to less judgment of others, when we don’t know the full story, and to feeling less guilt when we screw up. Let’s take responsibility for our mistakes, acknowledge them to our children, and learn to do better –getting professional help if necessary to help us achieve that – tomorrow.
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