What my wife Amy said to me wasn't meant to be mean. A little ornery, but not purposefully mean. It was more defensive posturing based on what I said to her and our two girls. And yet, the moment quickly erupted with the heat of a roaring fire.
It was just about taking baths, for God's sake. Our girls they take baths every day. Sometimes twice a day.
I do not. That's a lot of water and energy to heat the water every day. And after dinner every night when I'm doing the dishes and loading the dishwasher and the girls are taking their usual one bath per day, sometimes they run the hot water too much and I end up with lukewarm water to rinse the dishes with. That bugs me.
On one level it's a dad thing, being concerned about water and power, although these regular baths haven't pushed up our water or power bills at all (heating my garage office with an electric heater actually does that).
So after dinner one night the two baths issue came up. I had already been complaining for a few weeks about losing hot water after dinner.
And that's when I said, "The girls cannot take two baths a day."
"Yes, we can!" the girls said together.
Then Amy said, "What's it to you?"
Which was to me. Then I said, "Then you pay the bills, Amy!"
That outburst shocked Amy and the girls. Things escalated further with the f-word and pounding the table and yelling from both of us. Beatrice and Bryce looking surprised and a little scared. Although it wasn't the first time we've fought, we haven't had many of them over the years. Disagreements, yes, but heated fights, not so much. Even in the year of COVID-19 and stay-at-home orders and distance learning and everybody in the house all the time, not at all. Until now.
Thankfully I checked myself and used my own Kidpower version of "calm down power." I took a deep breath and just let it go. I understood that in these times of intense emotional triggers, the eruption duration leads to further escalation, and there's a split-second when the angry maw could consume us all. Amy told the girls to go upstairs and take their baths. As they quickly climbed the stairs, I apologized to Amy and even tried to joke that I should call Irene, the executive director and founder of Kidpower, and tell her I needed a remedial course on managing emotional triggers.
Amy wanted to make sure there was nothing else bothering me. There wasn't. She apologized for her flippant response, and we apologized to each other for escalating the situation, which in reality was a non-situation.
It wouldn't be until a few days later when I would realize the true trigger wasn't literally what she said, it was more about an ongoing issue for me (and many men) -- the false sense of being emasculated, to be made to feel weaker as a man for usually inane reasons. Patriarchy can be a soul sucker, that's for sure, and that combined with millions years of biology and my very own blue genes, it's a super soul sucker.
But the beauty of this breakdown is that I was again reminded that I'm married to a loving and strong, emboldened and empathic, independent and interdependent, human being, who just happens to be female.
That I'm a father of two loving and strong, emboldened and empathic, independent and interdependent, human beings, who just happen to be females.
That I'm a loving and strong, emboldened and empathic, independent and interdependent, human being, who just happens to be male.
When the girls came down from their baths, I apologized to them both for how I had acted.
"It's okay, Dad," Bea said.
"Did you call Irene at Kidpower?" Bryce said.
I laughed. "You heard that? Ha! That's funny, Bryce."
"Well, did you?"
I laughed again. "I love you both."
"We love you too, Dad."
And there it was, another mindful #BhivePower moment in another New Year, and a reminder we're a family that just happens to be human.
The best thing that ever happened a boy
You're the best thing about me
I'm the kind of trouble that you enjoy
You're the best thing about me
The best things are easy to destroy
You're the best thing about me
The best thing about me..."
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