A Place for Rage

“Anger has no place in a family.”

This was the phrase my counsellor spoke after I told him my 5 year old son attempted to hurt me and I responded in anger. Now he was a person who came from a family where rage was often used as a tool to manipulate. He felt anger represented the worst possible aspects of the human condition. He grew up in a household where his father held the family hostage with his anger. 

This was not an opinion I shared. I was lying between my boys and my son was upset at me for some slight. He then chose to get up and jump on my arm in an attempt to hurt me, he was probably 40lbs and lacked the ability. His ability to hurt me not withstanding, I recognised that this type of behaviour needs to be addressed. He couldn’t hurt me then, but that would not always be the case. One day he would have the same desire to harm another person with order of magnitude more power to back it up. I got angry at him because I wanted him to understand that if you try to hurt someone they will get angry. It is a valuable lesson to teach a boy to show the consequence of violence without showing him a violent answer. 

I have always felt that keeping the line of the relationship between myself and the kids raw. That goes both ways. My daughter has taught me that a child’s inability to make their own decisions (who to visit or what to do) can be frustrating because you don’t have any control.  As a child you feel like every decision is made for you and you can’t really get what you want at times. The reality of living a life where you have no control must be hard. I admit, I try to empathise, but I really don’t have a strong memory of that time in my life. I do have other parts of my development that I understand the need for empathy a lot more.  

Unfortunately, due to the nature of my childhood having been so far away, the point I do recall where it felt like expectations were given to me without consideration of my feelings was in my twenties. I do remember talking about sex in my early-mid twenties with authority figures. I believed preservation till marriage was absolutely crucial. Hence I was celibate, but I wasn’t dead. I was lectured on sexual conduct by people in active sexual relationships and many had been so for decades. They seemed to portray it as exceedingly unimportant. This seemed strangely detached from reality. I remember talking to my best friend and he asked me what I would want to do before I died, “have sex,” was my immediate response. Having been in a married relationship for almost two decades, I can now come up with a longer pre apocalyptic list than that, but at 23 it felt important. The reality of having people who enjoyed the benefit downplay its value made me feel like the circumstances were unfair. It drew into contrast the unfamiliar relationship they had with the phase of life I was living through. It made me feel exceedingly lonely because I wasn’t sure they even understood me. The authority figures lost the chance to share my humanity and left me emotionally isolated with my problems. When dealing with my kids, I am trying to find an honest way to talk to me and share what they are living through. This avenue is not meant to absolve them of responsibility. My leaders in my twenties gave wisdom, but because my reality was never part of their consideration the wisdom they gave felt like death. This left me with the need that if I am to serve the well-being of my children I have to allow them their humanity. If I demand their obedience without providing a space for them to feel or experience feelings in return then I am providing wisdom with no consideration. In other words I am giving them death.  

My children need to have space for my feelings and I actively try to give them space for their feelings. I have a very real, very visceral relationship with my children. They know when they succeed and when they fail. I do my very best to take accountability for my perceived successes and failures in their life too. I allow a visceral relationship because it is the most peaceful. If you learn to accept your feelings as neither good nor bad and understand that your father is a safe place to navigate these feelings, I dare say you have a super power. I try to see the world from their eyes. I have earned their respect because they know for all my intensity, if they conduct themselves rightly, I will turn that intensity on their adversaries. 

My anger, my passion is not a vice. If I am using it correctly, It is one of the many tools I use to teach my children about themselves and the world around them. I had parents who were very different, one was very cerebral and the other was very emotional. I am trying to combine both of those approaches in hopes my children will become the most honest, sincere, loving and respectful people possible. The reality of parenting often leaves parents and kids charged with unresolved emotions. I have found having a space for real feelings to flow in both directions is like seeing a thunder storm on the prairies. They are violent and intense, but necessary. Unlike my counsellor who would have feared the storm of rage, I find well used emotion can leave the relationship as clear and crisp as a prairie field after a thunder storm.