My Expressive Leatherkids

As one who spent a good part of her life suppressing a good chunk of her feelings, I fully appreciate the negative effect that doing so can have on a person.  Some may argue that I still operate under that suppressing mode, but I do feel like I have "come out" a bit and have realized the benefits of it.  I carry less around with me.  People oftentimes respond in a positive way.  Sometimes desired changes happen.  I just feel better.  I can’t put my finger on any specifically at the moment, but I don’t doubt that I have some experiences that might’ve turned out better for me had I expressed how I really felt about the situations and people involved in them.  I don’t regret them as they’re all a part of my story and how I ended up where I am and who I am now; but let’s just say things could’ve been a little easier for me had I told people how I really felt.

I figure that the risk of the Leatherkids going into their shells when encountering a problem situation that bothers them is in their genes; so, I try to encourage them to express how they feel about things when they’re feeling them.  I want them to be comfortable doing so.  This encouragement has generally been backward looking, meaning I’m not always proactive about it.  In fact, usually, I’m not.  The real story is that a reminder that it’s okay to do so usually follows my responding to some sort of battle over some inane happening with a stern tone, oftentimes at higher decibels and sometimes with a long string of sentences that miraculously make sense despite having gotten lost in the middle of them.

More often than not, the expressing of feelings arises when Ella was wronged by Cal, putting Cal in a position to defend himself.  This morning on our way to school, I had the pleasure of getting roped into such a situation which started for me as, “Mom, I have something to tell you in the car.”  And with that, Ella headed to the car where she waited patiently for me.

I really had no clue what might’ve happened to trigger that invitation.  I had heard them talking but at normal levels.  There didn’t seem to have been a fight.  I assumed she was just going to tell on him, for what, I couldn’t predict.  Everything, it seems, is a candidate for Ella’s tattle-telling ways.

I got to the garage to find Ella secured in the car and Cal shooting some last-minute hoops before school.  The kid can’t sit still.  I climbed into the car, as did Cal, and she immediately hit me with “Mom, Cal keeps saying, ‘your mom’ to me, and I don’t like it.”  What?

My immediate response was, “I don’t even know what that means.”  I tried to dismiss it.  I’m sure it’s some variation of “yo’ mamma,” from my day, which, honestly, I don’t know what that meant, either.

She proceeded to give me some examples, which I can’t recall right now.  But they involved her making a statement and him responding, “your mom.”  “It bothers me, Mom,” she told me.

“They’re just words, Ellie.  Just ignore them,” I wisely suggested.

“Yeah, but,” and she proceeded to tell me more, “and he says ‘your mom’ and also ‘your butt.’”

“Okay, Cal, I don’t like ‘your butt’.  Please don’t say that,” I responded.  He probably said it once.

“Okay,” Cal responded quickly.  He’s learning ways to attempt to diffuse conflicts.

“But, Mom, why does he say ‘your mom’?  It bothers me that he says that,” yadda yadda yadda.

“I know, Ellie, they’re just words.  The best thing you can do is ignore them.  He’ll stop saying it if you do.  He only says it because it bothers you.  But I’m glad you’re talking about it.  Please keep doing that.”  I believe all of that, even if it invites pain and suffering on my part.

I continued to catch an earful from both kids.  Cal played off of my advice and became preachy, and Ella kept telling me his words bother her.  Ugh.  If I stay consistent, it’ll sink in…

The next thing I knew, we were on the topic of their shared bathroom.  I believe Cal brought it up, probably because he was tired of taking the hits for his supposed wrongdoings on her.  We do tit-for-tat in the Leatherman household.

At 11 and almost 9, the kids are old enough that we believe that bathroom, notably shower, time is something we do alone.  And we just don’t walk around naked.  The kids haven’t fully adjusted to this rule of thumb and feel perfectly comfortable disrupting whatever the other might be doing in the bathroom.  It really is not uncommon on a weekday morning for Ella to disrupt Cal’s shower, iterating the rules that have been laid forth about time spent in the shower.  “Cal, Dad said you should only do a rinse-off shower, and that should only take FIVE MINUTES,” she’ll state bossily, whether it’s been 2 or 7 minutes since he started his shower.  She has no sense of time but a lot of attitude about supposedly abusing the rules around it.

This, of course, happened this morning.  Cal had a big problem with it and told me so while we all were in the expressing mode.  Not only did Ella barge into the bathroom and yap at him incessantly, she did so while also ripping the shower curtain open and, I'm sure, standing naked but with a towel on her head having gotten out of the shower herself just five minutes earlier.  Every sense of privacy was violated.

Frustrated, and now standing outside of the school, waiting for someone to let us in, I declared sternly but at a normal volume, “Okay, here’s the rule: only one of you in the bathroom at a time.  This applies to showers, pooping and brushing your teeth.  It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, if one of you is in the bathroom, the other can’t be.  That’s private time.”  I finished by saying bluntly, "And I'm glad we talked about this."

“But, Mom…” and then one of the before-school counselors arrived at the door to let us in.  Our drive from home to school is maybe three minutes, and then we stand and wait at the door for maybe 30 seconds.  All of this was discussed in that time.

And I’m good with it, despite some occasional pain and suffering and a strong preference to talk about something else.  I’m consistent, and they’re expressing.  Eventually, I’ll expect some emotional growth; but they're doing what I rarely did by talking, by telling me what's on their minds; and that's a good thing.