Letter to my son: You make me angry
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Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don’t.
I am not sure if I will have the opportunity to tell you exactly how I feel now in the future, so for the moment I am writing.
I love you and you love me but there many occasions that you make me angry.
You can see when I get angry. It is almost every time you :
- Do the opposite of what you are told or asked to do
- Want everything for yourself and disregard others
- You don’t try at all and immediately ask for help
- You don’t try enough and quit early
- You are rude and impolite
- You think I am here to solve all problems for you, now and in the future
But I love you unconditionally.
I understand that is part of your nature wanting to explore life, relationships, human interactions in order to understand life and manage you actions, reactions and character in this world. So sometimes I keep silent and calm. Sometimes you don’t see getting angry. It is when you :
- test my limits before I burst. Yes I get angry along the way.
- repeat to check if I mean what I say, with any possible way of interpretations and conditions.
- count on me for everything, when in fact you are just lazy to try, try again, try enough to succeed.
- take failure so seriously. Failure is here to motivate you, your mind, your body. Don’t internalize failure as trauma. Since you can still try again, there is nothing that can’t be undone, nothing that can’t still be achieved.
But the most potent is when
- compare me with others and I fall in the trap of stereotypes. I fall in and get angry with me and then I get angry with you because you triggered this.
While I love you unconditionally, there are occasions when you show and tell me the opposite. Tom’s mom doesn’t work, Tom’s mom picks him up from school every day, Tom’s mom dresses better, Tom’s mom cooks every day …
There is no better or worse.
It is just a different way.
