Please don’t call me patient
Monday through Friday I work at the corporate center for a major health system. Part of my job is to help train new employees, and I’m the first person people on my team go to for assistance. I am also expected to complete my assigned work and find scraps of time to complete extra projects to help drive revenue. Occasionally, people will look up after someone comes to me with a question I have answered several times before, written a training guide on, and sent a couple emails about, and say, “You are so patient.”
My answer is always the same: I have two small children. Assisting adults is a dream. I am not patient. My threshold for annoyance is just incredibly high. My children’s caregiver is patient, school teachers are patient, stay-at-home moms are patient. I am simply doing my job. A job I expect to be compensated for, recognized for and eventually promoted to a position with more stress, expectations and money. I love my job and it is intrinsically rewarding, my interactions with my coworkers do not stem from my obligation to repress any sort of frustration.
From 5:00 to 8:00 on the weekdays and on the weekends I am not seen as a person with patience. I am just a mom with the responsibility of caring for and providing for two small people of my own creation with seeming endless needs. They, full on, do not give a shit. It doesn’t matter to them how many other obligations are waiting for me at home. They need me to give them all of me. They need me to soothe their anxieties, help find their other slipper (which is right next to his foot BTW), sit with them, hold them, play with them, read stories, help them learn to share, and not react to their chaos with my own. That, my friend, is where I find out exactly how much patience I have.
I have found that patience is not a personality attribute. It’s not an endless well I can just dip into. It often feels like a finite resource, but it’s not that either. It more like a skill which requires a lot of practice. Being a child and trying to deal with the every day trials of personhood is too much. They can explode with huge emotions because a million tiny things didn’t happen as expected all day, then Mom said no to cookies for dinner and it all becomes too much. They aren’t thinking about the million things that didn’t go my way all day. They can’t. Growing up is an all consuming business. Perspective is my job.
Sometimes I am proud of how I can calm myself and be their rock. More often than not I also get overwhelmed. I yell, I rely on time out more than I should, I miss valuable opportunities to teach my children to cope with the huge emotions that come with existence. I know that my children are in the season of life where they will not remember the details, but they will remember if the world is a place where they are safe to grow. As their mother, I am responsible for providing for their physical needs while still leaving myself the energy for providing the safe space for them to be emotionally vulnerable without fear. It’s a huge job.
When I go back to work the next day nobody lays at my feet sobbing because they wanted the pen their coworker is writing with. We all take turns at the printer without any major meltdowns. We go to the cafeteria and find something to eat without screaming that we don’t like spaghetti today. I can correct a behavior without having to physically restrain anybody. I can use the bathroom any time I freaking want without an audience. So please, don’t call me patient.
eadensideas 