By: Nancy Sungyun

Someone close to me once said, “we hurt the ones we love the most.”  Those were words iterated by my ex-husband to a very frustrated recipient, me.  Many moons had to pass before I finally got a chance to arrive at an understanding of my own.  Opportunity in the guise of pain forces me to see the truth of that statement.  It is not to excuse potentially hurtful behavior, but it is to become fully aware that I too have been participating in the behavior that I hate in others: the behaviors that caused me great pain.  Too many times.

I automatically rejected his words when my son accused me of being mean to him at times.  I waved it off.  I knew that he was just being dramatic, or just simply wrong.  I could not acknowledge what could never be true.  Of course not.  He was wrong.  I am not a mean person!

One morning recently, I woke up with a broken heart.  I woke recalling a scene from the day before and I was overcome by deep sadness I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I was standing by a kitchen table, busily putting together plates for the guests on their way soon, while Enzo, a large Rottweiler sat patiently waiting to see if he could earn any scraps .  I had not seen my son for months almost, and wanted this day to be special one for us.  I had wanted to reassure him of how important and special he is to me.

While I was busily cooking for other guests, my son offered Enzo a piece of beef, just the way we used to do with our own dog.  I quickly snapped: “Don’t feed him!  He’s on a diet and could have Diarrhea!!!”

It isn’t so much the words that I said to him that broke my heart. It is the tone in which I said it and how I may have made him feel, even if he was not clearly aware.

My son was right about me all along.  I had been mean to him at times.   Too many times.  I am at times mean to my loved one.  I love him more than anything in this world.  I have been hurting the ones that I love the most.  I have been hurting my son (and others that I love as well, I am sure of this).  I have behaved in that hurtful way to my precious one too many times in the past.

I called my son and spoke to him about my misbehavior and he in his wonderful fashion simply thanked me for sharing my feelings with him and my acknowledgment of his grievances that I had made mistakes in the past.

If “knowing is half the battle,” then I may have just arrived at the half-way mark on the journey to not hurting my son.  I am not advocating for editing every criticism, nor am I saying that criticisms themselves are to be all together banned from our communications.  But a regular practice of pausing to check on the intention behind one’s reactions (verbal and other wise) might be invaluable to becoming a genuinely loving parent and a genuinely loving human being.