Guilt and the two yearold

So, after my mom's very fun response to my last post, she sent me a long email apologizing for being so flip. Honestly, I hope she (don't worry, already emailed, not writing this to her in a post) and everyone who reads this knows I was mostly kidding.

M's two. She barely understands her own emotions, let alone what she can do to others. I know that, and my reaction to what she did was to make light of it. Sure, it stung a little, but I know what it was. Her figuring out she didn't like something that I was doing, and treating me the way I treat her when she's not being nice, by not dealing with me. (Hitting and other inappropriate behavior now gets her playing by herself, the timeout has lost it's power) If anything, it was a good sign that we're making progress on her not so nice behavior.

My family comes with a lot of emotional baggage including manipulation, competitiveness, and healthy doses of addiction issues. They are all things I don't want to pass on to M, but the reality is that no matter what, some of it will. Every generation has the potential to improve on the last one, but in the process, we're bound to make new more interesting mistakes as well.

Hopefully M can look back on her own childhood the way I can look at mine. My parents weren't perfect, but they tried hard, and I'm definitely and improvement from the previous generations. Thanks mom.