Anti-rage strategies have their place – but a home full of recalcitrant offspring isn’t it
A friend of mine was recently in a fight with her hood as she rushed to put her coat on and get her son out the door. She told me this ruefully, over lunch, after I had described to her a scene from the morning in which I had found myself screaming, “How many times do I have to ask?” at someone in my house who wouldn’t put on their shoes. The sad thing is, she said, the morning had been relatively calm and she had praised herself for keeping control. Then everything derailed, the inevitable rage spiral occurred, and there she stood, assaulting her own jacket as her nine-year-old son looked impassively on.
Before I had children, I laboured under the misapprehension that I was a reasonable person, with higher than average self-control. In arguments, I went either for sarcasm or serial-killer calm. I never yelled at cab drivers or complained about bad service. Now the best I can say for myself is that, prior to an explosion, my system gives me a three-second warning – enough time to feel a flash of regret, but not enough to do anything about it.
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