Bad mother

Not very often, but every once in a while, I close the boys bedroom doors at the end of the day and think, 'I'm doing ok, I was a good Mom today'. Yesterday, WAS NOT one of those days. We were over at the neighbours house playing after school and the boys were in the backyard while I chatted with the moms in the front. All of a sudden, I heard Zachary screaming, not in pain, but in annoyance, which he does sometimes when he gets frustrated and doesn't know what to say. So, I went around back and talked to him. 'Zachary, we can't just scream at people, please say you are sorry'. He did and since I was in the middle of a discussion, I went quickly back to my friends. Less than a minute later, he did it again. Now, I was annoyed too - 'Zachary, I called, no more screaming, or we are going to have to go home...'.

Well, that didn't do the trick either, he screamed again and I pulled up stakes. 'We are going home because you can't stop screaming - you have to learn to use your words when you get frustrated...'. Zachary did not like that at all. He got even more mad. Zachary in a rage is something to see, a force of nature if you will. I ended up having to hold his hand all the way home while he yelled, cried and tried to hit me. I was so furious by the time we got there that I just sent him to his room saying, 'Zachary, I am very upset and angry right now, you need to go to your room until I calm down'. Then, I called my mother and told her that I had sent him to his room so I didn't kill him. I was so furious that I was seeing red!

When I finally felt that I was able to be rational, I went upstairs to talk to him. I asked if he knew why he was in his room. He said yes. I asked why he had been screaming, expecting him to say that so and so was annoying him and that's when he came out with it, 'the kids were hitting me with sticks..'. I was stunned, so stunned that I asked him to repeat himself. Tears began to sting my eyes. What was wrong with me, the neighbourhood kids were beating on my son and I was annoyed that he was screaming back? That he was interrupting my conversation? Granted, Zachary isn't very good at answering the question, 'why were you screaming?', in fact, we rarely get an answer when we ask it. He's usually just pissed off and that's how he expresses it. But still, they were hitting him with sticks and I punished him for it? Some days I hate myself. Yesterday was one of those days.