Passing On The Worst

Being a mom has been more spectacular than I ever could have imagined. I didn't know I had so much love to give. I didn't know I could feel so proud. And I definitely didn't know someone else would have so much control over my emotions. I've always hated the saying "If Mom isn't happy, then no one is happy." As if a mother's bad mood makes everyone else miserable. But it wasn't till I became a mother that I discovered that for at least our family my mood often reflects the mood of everyone else. If my kids are sad I am sad, if my husband is stressed I feel stressed. If the kids are actting out I feel like there is a problem that they are actting out and of course I go into "fix it" mode.

But I am learning that sometimes you can't always fix things right away. And sometimes the things you hate most about yourself are the things you have passed onto your kids. And the pain is incredible. So soul splitting incredibly hard.
Last week I had gotten all the kids in bed. Travis was waiting downstairs to start our DVR'd tv time. I was taking out my contacts, getting into comfy pj's, and getting ready for bed when I hear the not so quiet sobbing of one of my kids. The shear intensity of it let me know right away it was Bella.

I went to her room a little annoyed thinking this was something about going to bed. I knew she needed her sleep because the next day she had a field trip and it would be a long day filled with tons of walking. When I inquired about her tears I realized the depth of anxiety she was suffereing in the silent dark of her room. Because she was imagining everything new and unfamiliar about her fieldtrip tomorrow she was stressed and worried and filled with fear. Her biggest fear was of the potential for an escalator to be somewhere at the factory they toured. She is afraid of escalators and still needs to hold Travis or my hand to go on them.

My gut was filled with anger and sadness. Anger that I had passed on this genetic disposition. This disposition which had also been passed down to me from my parents. I hated that I had given her a life of anxiety and a fear of the unknown and a desire to control everything. I have been working my whole life to manage it, then get over it, and now I see my daughter having to suffer this same battle.

As I talked to her I tried to pass on the wisdom I had learned about managing this paralyzing anxiety. Talking about what freaks you out tends to help. And usually there is a solution to fix all these imagined hazards. So I talked to her about what her field trip might entail the things they would see, the potential there was for there to be an escalator in Herr's Snack Factory -very low probability -, but what she could do if there was one. In the end I ended up making a call to the parent who would be supervising her group to give her a heads up. And that was enough to calm Bella down.

As I walked down the stairs knowing I had soothed Bella and she now laid on the verge of dreamworld I was crumbled with devastation. Everyday I see all the good things my kids have gotten from Travis and me. I see that they have Travis's amazingly long eye lashes. They have my desire to laugh about almost anything. They share both Travis and my strong faith in a loving God. But I guess it was inevitable that they may inherit the not so good qualities about us too.

And it just seemed so unfair. As a mother I try and protect these kids from everything bad and horrible about this life. I try to shield them from the things I think may not be good for them. But this I introduced into their life. This is because of me. I hadn't protected her at all from this. And the pain just sucks.