No matter how hard we try to do everything right with our children, we are going to make mistakes. Some of these mistakes will cause our children unintended trauma. I’m not talking about physical or psychological abuse. I’m talking about everyday things that stick with your child for the rest of their life.
If you think back, you will remember seemingly innocent incidents when you were a child that still cause you trauma. My mom used to sing a song “I see the moon and the moon sees me…” It caused my sister untold trauma always wondering “Is the moon watching me now?”
Here are some things I did that unintentionally caused trauma for my kids.
One time, my son was dressing for a formal event. He put on a navy blue shirt and black pants. I told him that they don’t really go together. My grandfather owned a men’s clothing store. He taught me not to wear navy blue and black together, so I told my son the same thing. Now, years later, he has a minor freak out when he sees black and navy blue clothing pieces paired.
Serious, mental, and emotional trauma? No, it isn’t. It’s laughable, but still trauma for him.
I’ve caused my daughter clothing related trauma as well. Ever since she was in preschool, I let her choose her own outfits. I decided early on that some things weren’t worth fighting over, like wearing the perfect outfit at 3 years old. I would let her choose what she wanted to wear. I’d ask her, “Do you think this looks good?” When she said “yes” I would shrug and let her wear it.
Orange pants with a pink shirt? Great! Striped pants with a flower shirt? Great! Yes, my grandfather very likely would have had something to say about those combinations like he did with navy blue and black, but she was a toddler. Controlling her clothing choices wasn’t worth the fight. As long as she had a top and bottom on, and it was warm enough for cold weather or cool enough for warm weather, she was fine. It was even a point of intrigue for the other mothers at her preschool who wanted to meet the mom who let her toddler dress herself.
So, what caused her trauma? When she was older, she was wearing socks that didn’t match each other. I said something about making sure her socks matched. As a teenager, I discovered that she not only had trauma about her socks matching each other, she actually chose socks that had an L and R so that she had the matching socks on the correct feet.
Then, there was the day I caused my son intentional trauma. We were at a seafood market. He saw some shrimp were curly and some were straight. He asked me what was the difference, was there something wrong? I told him I didn’t think it made a difference, but he was not satisfied with that answer and persisted. So, I asked him “Do you want me to make something up?” He answered “yes.” I told him that curly shrimp were the only ones to eat and the straight ones were poisonous so you should never eat them. He nodded soberly.
I asked him, “You know that I just made that up, but you are never going to eat a straight shrimp, are you?” He said nope. He never would. Intentional trauma.
What’s the lesson here? You will definitely cause your child trauma. It’s part of being human. Don’t spend too much time worrying about whether you will get things perfect, just do the best that you can.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with unintentionally messing us your kids.