How I Became and Stopped Being a Yeller (A 60 Day Reflection)

Yelling at children goes against everything for which I stand, for which Zen Parenting stands.  It's abusive, damaging, ineffective, and unnecessary.  And yet, somewhere along the line, I started yelling.  I don't recall it happening.  It sneaked in while I wasn't being vigilant.  Then, like a fungus, it spread.  All of a sudden, I found myself yelling at my son on an all-too-regular basis and I hated myself for it.  He wasn't a big fan either.

I grew up with yelling.  I grew up being yelled out, I grew up yelling at and with my brother.  Fighting was a way of life.  It wasn't until my late 20s that I started therapy and began questioning, well, everything.  One thing was for sure: I no longer wanted to be a yeller.  Alas, decades of conditioning aren't always that easy to break.

I went a full 3 1/2 years of motherhood without even raising my voice.  Then it happened.  And once the first one slipped out, it left room for the second, and the twenty-second, until I could no longer count...and felt I could no longer control myself.  I reverted right back to what I had grown up with, what I had once been.  

Just over 60 days ago, I yelled at my son for the last time.  I made him cry.  I refuse to not acknowledge this.  I refuse to sweep it under the rug.  It's ugly, it's real, it's honest, and I hate it all.  It broke me.  It breaks me still as I type.  I cannot fool myself into believing it didn't also break him.  I broke my son.  Not totally, no, but some and that's too much.

How had I let this happen?  How could I look into the eyes of someone I love unquantifiably and tear away at him from the inside with my volume and venom?  How did I let myself get so out of control?  How did I become what I vowed I never would?

Something had to be done.  After many thoughtful conversations with my now five-year-old, we teamed up to take The Orange Rhino Challenge.  We went to the office supply store and picked out a calendar together.  We posted it up right next to the bed where we cosleep so that every night we could, together, write the number of days it has been since I yelled.  We printed and cut out a large Orange Rhino and pasted it to a thick piece of foam-core board so that he could hold it up for me as a reminder of my commitment if and when he thought I was getting close to yelling.  Nightly, we discussed my progress and our thoughts and feelings about that and about our relationship with each other.  Regularly, he told me how proud he was of me, how good things felt for him.  In fact, he told me it was the thing he was most proud of in me.

I messed up twice.  I did.  It was at the beginning when things were hardest, the adjustment took the most effort.  So, I took my days off my count, I apologized, we discussed, we continued on.  It has been far from easy.  I mean, no matter how much you love someone, they're still going to bug you from time to time.  He's absolute perfection in my mind, but he also knows how to make my eye twitch.

Taking on this challenge has not only brought us closer just by virtue of me no longer yelling, but by opening up conversations that hadn't yet taken place.  One of the reasons I used to yell was that I felt triggered.  He used to lie on top of  me if he didn't want me to get up from where we were sitting together or run in front of where I was trying to walk and tell me he was an "immovable boulder" while physically blocking my path.  This would instantly trigger me.  Instantly and hugely.  I would freak out.  As a survivor of sexual assault and rape, having my body controlled, even if just in perception, sends me over the edge.  He didn't know that, though.  How could he?  He's five, innocent, naive, and completely ignorant of what rape and triggers even are.  So, we talked about it.  We talked about triggers, we talked about what triggers me, we talked about why.  And he hasn't done either thing since.  He got it immediately.  We're closer for it.

Another trigger for me was sound and certain physical and visual cues.  I have misophonia.  The Misophonia Institute has spectacularly informative and clear videos explaining misophonia both the person afflicted and those around us affected.  Once my son understood triggers, he was then able to understand my misophonia far better, as he was then able to grasp that certain sounds were far more than simply "irritating" to me.  As a result, he's more cognizant, we talk more about it, and we're closer for it.

Look, I'm as fallible as the next person.  Just because I'm Zen Parenting doesn't mean I don't lose my zen from time to time.  The goal is to grow.  Progress, not perfection.  I fell.  I took several steps back on my path to where I want to be as a parent, but I'm on my way back, I'm 60 days deep, I'm a better mom and person for it.  Most importantly, my son sees me working, is growing and learning right beside me, knows unfailingly that he is loved.

I don't remember the day I became a yeller, but I recall vividly the day I stopped being one.  It was one of the best days of both my and my son's lives and I refuse to let that go.

Guns, Law Enforcement, and Accountability for All

Nearly 100% of law enforcement officers and personnel I know (which is a considerable amount given my background)* are for citizens owning and carrying weapons. The current sheriff of my own former department has gone above and beyond to expedite the process of obtaining one's concealed weapons permit in that county. Here's the problem: how then do they know a good guy from a bad guy especially in a fast-paced, chaotic situation? Those blurred lines are creating even bigger issues than we had before, which were already plentiful and myriad.

Traffic stops are some of the most dangerous encounters law enforcement officers ever have. Tensions are already high. Suspicions already abound. Wouldn't you then want to know that someone with a gun in the car you just pulled over is *certainly* not legally justified in having one? Wouldn't you want to eliminate any question so you could act accordingly and appropriately without fear of being fatally incorrect?

Open carry is applauded by many of you I know, as well, and yet that only further blurs lines and creates confusion and heightened danger. If someone outside of a store is wielding a gun and you respond to that call in an open carry state, how can you instantly tell which person holding a gun is the bad and which is the good? Wouldn't you want to eliminate any bewilderment so you could more confidently and efficiently do your already terribly dangerous, stressful job?

Your unending support of the "guns, guns everywhere" mentality is creating infinite problems for you, for us, for everyone.

Your unquestioning loyalty for those sharing your profession does nothing but create further distrust as opposed to the feelings others would have for you if you would simply evaluate each case on its own merits, stand behind that which is right, but also firmly admonish and distance yourself from that which is wrong. People can get behind someone, anyone who says, "Ugh. I'm so sorry that one not-fully-trained or mentally unstable or highly emotional or inexperienced or just plain mistaken in this circumstance officer did what they did. It wasn't right. It also isn't representative of the overwhelming majority of us. As ever, we continue to do our jobs, because we care." People can get behind someone, anyone who says, "That was a mistake" regardless of its egregiousness. People distrust unfailing support of that which is sometimes so very clearly wrong, sometimes questionable, sometimes riding the line of morality.

As a teacher, I am understandably sensitive and defensive when others post negativity about teachers. My knee-jerk reaction is to stand up for them. What does that say to others, though, when it turns out the teacher has done something unconscionable? How does anyone trust me as a teacher if I jump to the defense of all teachers blindly and without regard for offense? They can't. And I can't ask them to.

I know you. I see you. Let down your walls, allow your humanity to show through, give others a glimpse of your heart as opposed to the coldness of your blue walls.

I wrote this just a couple of hours before seeing a similar plea about peer accountability from Officer Nakia Jones and then as she expounded upon that in a press conference the next day.  I wrote this days before hearing Chief David Brown speak eloquently and passionately about guns in public making his job and the jobs of his employees infinitely harder. I wrote this a week before reading the Associated Press' pointed questions as to the logic and wisdom of laws permitting open carry gun laws to which people are still vehemently responding with their standard 2nd Amendment quotes that serve no purpose in driving progress.  I am not alone in wanting, no, demanding more and better both for our law enforcement officers and for the people they serve, all the people they serve.  We will continue to set high expectations, hold each other accountable even when it is an unpopular act to do so, press the loud and well-armed minority on the prudence of their votes and decisions.  We do this precisely because we do so appreciate the intensely trying and, at times, life-threatening jobs our peace officers do and wish for only the cream of the crop to represent them.  We do this not because we value only black lives or only blue lives while dismissing the lives of the other; we do this because we value lives and care most immediately about protecting those that are most in danger, most at risk. 

*  6 years working in both training and as a Sheriff's Service Specialist with the San Bernardino** County Sheriff's Department, as well as living as a child of and family member to law enforcement officers ranging in rank from deputy all the way up to sheriff of the largest county in the United States. 

** Yes, that San Bernardino.  The one that got shot up and terrorized.  The one in which my sister-in-law and four-year-old nephew were having lunch around the corner from gunshots ringing out, feeling unsure if they'd make it home alive as they fled.  The one in which a former classmate of mine lost his life.  This is personal.  It's all personal.

Your "Drama" is My Reality - Racial Disparity in the U.S.

Guest Post by Tramane

A lot of you will not understand this, but that’s the problem. You don’t understand and you don’t try to.* People of color live in a very different reality than their white counterparts when it comes to law enforcement. The narratives we hear growing up are very different. If you watch or read the same news stories I do, then you should understand why. What I once thought were isolated incidents have somehow become commonplace. The reality is African-Americans are killed at a disproportionately higher rate than others.

I have an irrational** fear of being confronted by police officers and it not ending well for me. This thought runs through my head quite frequently. So much so that I play scenarios in my head of how the aftermath might play out. I have a list of four people who I would want to speak on my behalf or the behalf of my family in the event that I am unable to speak for myself. I wonder what pictures the news or social media will use to share my story. Will anyone even get my side of the story or will the anchor simply say, “A man resisted arrest today and police were forced to shoot him”?

This might sound “dramatic” to some of you but it’s my reality. I’ve seen too many examples that started with a broken tail light and ended with a body bag.

Tramane is a beloved public high school teacher, passionate world traveler, and hopes to one day be a social justice warrior.

He lives his life consciously, learns as much from his students as they learn from him, and immerses himself in all cultures he encounters in effort to gain greater and deeper as a global citizen.

Tramane makes the world just a little better by being himself in it.






*We cannot all understand, but we can acknowledge our privilege and use it to effect change.

**Zen Parenting does not agree with Tramane's assessment that his very real fear is irrational, rather based on awareness.