There are so many rules to marriage, to raising kids and to keeping the family unit healthy that sometimes it’s these well-meaning rules that weigh a person down and make them feel like abject failures for not always doing the right thing – per the rule book.
We’ve heard all the rules, from never going to bed angry with your spouse (please! I think we’ve all gone to bed looking at the sleepy lump beside us wondering what on earth we married) and to never (ever!) fight in front of our kids. I have a problem with these two in particular. We’re human, and our spouses are going to tick us off, and vice versa. To have a disagreement at 9 p.m. and have kissed and made up by bedtime is a bit much, unless it’s an episode of the Cosby’s. Real life doesn’t work like that. This isn’t to say it’s a good idea to go to bed while considering the suffocation possibilities of our pillow, but going to bed a little pissed off is okay, once in a while. It’s not a sign of your marriage’s ultimate demise down the line. Marriages don’t happen overnight and nor does problem solving within it.
And what about our kids? Do we always present the happy couple to them, or is it okay to hash out a disagreement over dinner? Well, the answer depends on what you call a fight. Yelling, screaming, name-calling and accusations are never good in general, and certainly not in front of children. Children are enormous guilt carriers and will assume they are to blame. They will probably think they did something to cause the fight or to anger their parents and can even go to bed terrified of an impending divorce. Serious disagreements need to be kept to isolated areas (go for a walk or wait until the children are out of the home) or keep dirty laundry in the therapist's office. As parents, we have no right to drag our children into our messes.
But the debates and the disagreements over politics, school boards and other less personal topics? Debating in a smart, respectful manner in the presence of our kids can actually be healthy, especially with kids over the age of six. The fair "fight" can be a good fight. By showing our children that parents have long left the Brady Bunch era and can disagree on issues and still love each other, teaches our kids about healthy conflict resolution and that as humans, we’re bound to disagree. It’s not about keeping a non-personal fight private, as much as it’s about keeping the fight fair.
The cliché about kids being sponges is no cliché. Not only do they listen to our words, they watch our body language, listen to our tone of voice and take heed of our facial expressions. They will learn how to agree to disagree in a way that maintains respect and common courtesy of a person who doesn’t feel the same way about things as they do, if they see their parents doing the same thing. Keeping every disagreement a secret is fine, if it doesn’t make you want to burst inside. But for those of us who spend a lot of our time as a family unit, we know we’re going to disagree with our spouse. After all, we didn’t marry ourselves, did we? Did we actually think a life lived with another human being would never result in a good, old-fashioned scrap?
No child wants to hear their parents shout at each other, with all that name-calling and face-making. But unless we have turned into Stepford couples, it’s okay to sort out disagreements and now and again, and it’s okay to do it with our kids around. Everyone disagrees but we can use these times as a teaching tool. Learning about business and politics (my husband and I recently had a political debate over the BP oil spill and yes, our children heard us state our cases and disagree over it all, too) but they also saw us hanging out together a few minutes later and laughing over something a friend said. Let’s let our kids learn a little about how the world outside them works and how Mom and Dad can get feisty over it. Because yes, kids, your parents are two separate entities who sometimes disagree! But in doing so, we can teach you how to fight the fair fight, with no hurt feelings or an aftermath of guilt, anxiety and confusion. Like boxing, we need to keep it fair and keep it above the belt. But we’re not real boxers, so we also keep the knock-outs for the ring, for the professionals.
Tell Me – Ever had a disagreement with your spouse in front of the kids? Was it fair? How did you feel afterwards? How did the kids?