How much should I talk to my kids about my own emotions?

A reader is torn between wanting to openly discuss emotions and not wanting to burden her kids with her feelings.

A reader asks…

I am hoping to break endless cycles of emotional violence and raise emotionally attuned, thoughtful kids. Unfortunately, I’m parenting alongside my husband, a mostly-absent but occasionally authoritarian manbaby who contributes nothing but misery.

So I don’t have a great relationship example to present to my children, and I’m also left wondering how to talk to them about his behavior— as well as my emotional reaction to chronic low-level emotional abuse.

I want them to understand that I am a person with emotions, and that even adults have emotions, but don’t want to burden them with my feelings.

I read your “Welcome to motherhood. Fuck you” piece, and I loved it because it perfectly captured how all potential approaches here feel wrong, and how no matter what I do, someone will judge me for it.

What’s the happy medium here?

My answer

The fact that you’re thinking about competing values here—being emotionally open and attuned while not emotionally relying on your kids—tells me that you are going to figure this out, and that you have the ability to adjust course when something doesn’t work.

I’m not a fan of hard-and-fast parenting rules about much of anything. I’ve written, for example, about how parenting scripts conceal the challenging work of parenting and don’t allow much room for flexibility and nuance. I realize that makes it harder. Life is easier with simple rules, but our world is complicated, and when we know there’s no rule for everything, it can encourage us to know our children and ourselves a little better. What works in one child, or in one family, may fail miserably in another.

So experiment. Try again. Learn what works by listening to what doesn’t.

Rather than a simple guideline, I encourage parents to think about some of the following:

• Share emotions with your children when doing so is to their benefit. For example, it can be helpful for them to see you think and talk through a conflict at work or with a friend. Your goal is to model healthy communication, not to be vulnerable with young kids.

• Don’t use emotional discussions to seek support. Most parents know this, but it’s important to be mindful that children often find it threatening when parents are upset. It can be destabilizing to think mom or dad can’t cope. Some children immediately try to rescue their parents, even when their parents neither need nor want this. So know your kid. Know their tendencies and be prepared to course correct.

• Don’t talk to your children about the negative feelings you experience about parenting them. They didn’t “make” you mad or sad or scared. This puts too much of a burden on them. If you occasionally slip up, don’t beat yourself up; we all do this from time to time. But a pattern of telling your kids they are responsible for your emotions can foster harmful codependency and people pleasing.

• Consider talking to your kids, out loud, when you are uncertain about how to parent them. I find this can be a really powerful tool. “You know, I really need you to do this thing, but I don’t know how to get you to do it in a way that’s not harmful to anyone. Sometimes being a mom is challenging! What do you think?” This encourages collaborative problem-solving and relieves some of the burdens of hierarchical parenting.

• Be in your kid’s corner when dad misbehaves. No, he did not yell because he loved them; and in fact, you don’t need to reassure your kids that Asshole Dad loves them at all, because they don’t need to associate his bad behavior with love. Instead you can say things like, “We all struggle with our emotions sometimes. When dad gets angry, he does things that are mean, and I will always do what I can to protect you” or “No grown-up should ever talk to a child that way.”

• Remind yourself constantly that children cannot be abusive. Abuse requires societal power, which includes a social apparatus to support the abuser in their abuse. Children lack this power. They can be mean. They can hurt your feelings. They can even sometimes be dangerous. But your child is not abusing you. Too often, parents label their kids as abusive when they’re merely obnoxious, and this can dangerously color all future interactions with the child.

• Try talking to your child about your emotions at times where you are not intensely feeling them. This gives you more control over the direction of the conversation, and reduces the likelihood that you will accidentally find yourself leaning on them for emotional support.

What I’m more concerned about here is the effect your husband is having on your children. Because you’re right that whatever is modeled to children feels normal to them, and often becomes something they seek out—or something that they at the very least do not actively avoid.

Moreover, you’re going to reach a point where you basically have two choices:

• Show your children your emotions about living with their dad. This creates instability, since you are going to be feeling chronically unhappy and likely scared. This is harmful for your children.

• Hide your emotions about living with you partner. This creates the illusion that the way he treats you is fine, that normal people do not react negatively to abuse, and that your children should aspire to not react to abuse. It’s normalizing your abuse, and it’s also harmful.

Most of us have a strong bias in favor of the status quo. And many of us have heard horror stories about family courts and divorces. This can cause women to stay in marriages that are harming their children and themselves. I urge you to take an objective look at your circumstances and ask yourself about your biggest barriers to leaving.

This assessment should occur along with a consultation with at least three divorce lawyers (who usually offer free consultations). I want you to make decisions rooted in reality, not fear or fantasy. Leaving could be easier than you expect. My own research shows that virtually no women regret leaving.

You and your children will both have fewer negative emotions if you get out.

I have more advice on building an exit plan here, here, and here.

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