A thousand jocular openings will not disguise a simple truth. Today we deal with self-disgust and its importance.
Alternative phrasing: what does one do when the collection of repellent aspects of our personality and our daily functioning is revealed to a child's eyes, and sometimes erupts over their head?
Nearly all parents begin their experience of parenthood with an innocent internal vision of a little house on the prairie, of magical spring days playing on the grass, of warm winter nights with stories under a blanket.
I do not say that cynically. There is no relationship in the world that we enter free of expectations, and our relationship with the newborn carries the strongest set of expectations there is: the expectation of a corrective experience.
And yes, we want to correct, because deep down nearly every one of us carries the knowledge that we are somewhat damaged in certain areas of our existence. Standing in the delivery room we suppress that thoroughly, but you and I know that somewhere in the past you were wounded, and those childhood burns changed shape into a more grown-up version: doubts and fears.
But the small one has come into the world and everybody is glad, so we set it aside and hope it will be fine. A necessary naivety takes us over: perhaps this time, just this time, I will manage to restrain my cynicism, my laziness, my aggression, my indifference.
The initial excitement fades and the routine of life takes its place. Summer gives way to autumn and people return to their old ways, but this time with one small change — now there is a pair of small antennae following you and seeing you.
The child was there when you screamed.
And here is the thing worth saying to that parent, because the guilt that follows is frequently more damaging than the incident.
A child does not require a parent who never loses control. That parent does not exist and never has. What a child requires is a parent who repairs — who comes back, twenty minutes later, and says plainly that they lost their temper, that it was not the child's fault, and that they are sorry.
That sequence, repeated over the years, teaches something no amount of unbroken calm could teach: that ruptures can be mended, that people who love you can behave badly and return, and that being wrong is survivable.
Which means your worst evenings are not merely forgivable. Handled properly, they are among the more useful things you will ever do for them.