Navigating Your Rainbow Of Emotions After Your Toddler Slaps You In The Face
It was late. Maybe 10 P.M. Maybe 11. Time starts to run together when you’re trying to put a child to bed in a dark room. It’s like being in a casino. When you finally leave, your eyes squint at the light, wondering how much time you lost. My daughter, Grace was 3 years old and she was wide awake like she was on a 24 hour black jack hot streak.
There is no reasoning with an overtired child. They don’t care that sleep helps them grow up big and strong. Or that dreams are like a movie they can watch while they sleep. Or that when they wake up, they get to go to school and see their friends.
As Grace bounced off the walls in a manic fit, all I could do was keep my back to the door and repeat calmly that it was bedtime.
Grace is used to getting her way. For all intents and purposes, I’ll do whatever she says. Some might say I am a pushover. I like to think that I am water. Instead of banging against a rock in a river, I flow around it. I keep things moving. But tonight this water was wearing her down like the Colorado River wore down the Grand Canyon. There were long sobs. Tears rolled down her face. After spending all her energy, eventually she gave in. Grace gently toddled over to me, prepared to accept the inevitable sleep with which we all indulge.
I sensed that victory was within my grasp. I imagined returning to my own bed and watching an episode of Game of Thrones as I too, dozed off. But as Grace approached, she did something I couldn’t have anticipated. She wiped the tears out of her eyes, and with that wet hand, slapped me across the face.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been slapped in the face, but it is the most disrespectful way to get attacked. If you get punched, they say, “That guy can take a punch!” But if you get slapped, they say, “That guy got slapped like a bitch!” The only thing worse than getting slapped in the face is getting slapped in the face with a wet hand. Like a wet towel rolled up and snapped, to sting a nerd in a locker room shower. That pain can last for years.
Up to the moment Grace struck, I didn’t know there was something worse than a wet slap to the face. Then I found out the secret ingredient to total disrespect: when the moisture comes from a child’s tears.
As a parent, you would do anything to stop your child from feeling pain. The psychological turmoil of knowing that you are the reason they are crying is a burden I wish on no one. But to have that turmoil manifest into the physical world as tears wetting a hand, a hand delivering a slap: that is the eye of newt that brings this spell of disrespect to a frothing bubble.
As my face heated up, red from the imprint of a tiny hand, I immediately felt sympathy for anyone who has been pushed past their limit. Any mere mortal who couldn’t resist the caveman urges to retaliate against a less powerful instigator.
I once heard the author, George Saunders talk about writing a villain. He proposed that all villains start out too generic and only when you rewrite them closer to yourself, with problems that you can understand, do you have a compelling bad guy. In the immediate moment after “the slap heard round the bedroom” I knew the evil that lies in men’s hearts. A shade closer to Darth Vader. A shade farther from Luke Skywalker.
I thank the Gods that I had the wherewithal to remember my daughter is a little angel who was overtired and frustrated. She didn’t have the words to express herself, so she used her hand.
The flash of emotion and confusion came and went like a rapid on my flowing river of patience. I laughed to myself as I cradled my daughter and rocked her to sleep. Maybe I am a pushover. Maybe I’m Darth Vader. Being a parent is some where in the middle.
Greg Tindale is an author, improviser, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. His memoir, “I Guarantee You Love, Fame and Legacy” follows his journey through self-realization as a comedian and father.
