Safe To Explode: The Actual Reason Children Are 800 Percent Worse When Their Mothers Are In The Room

“They were fine all day with me, but the second they saw you, they lost it, Kate! I don’t understand!” My husband says this on a regular basis.

The other day, I read a funny article titled “Study: Children Are 800% Worse When Their Mothers Are in the Room.” I cracked up when I read the title, and quickly realized it was a fake study. Despite that, the concept is true! Kids are absolutely 800 percent worse when around their mothers. Why?

Because you, Mama, are their safe place. You are the place they can come to with all their problems. If you can’t make something better…well, then who else can?

You, dear Mama, are a garbage disposal of unpleasant feelings and emotions.

If your child has been holding it together in an unpleasant situation all day, the second she sees you, she knows she can finally let go.

That means letting go of whatever: whining, crying, her bowels, etc. It’s the last thing you want to deal with after having been out enjoying yourself, or after coming home, tired, from a day at work. But that’s what mothers get: the uninhibited expression of a raw emotional release, slapping us in the face the second we stumble through the door.

You have not spoiled your kids rotten if you are greeted at the door with whining and screaming. Oh no. Don’t let anyone tell you that.

Rather, you’ve created a space safe enough for your child to have permission to be natural.

And, by the way: It’s really, really important for kids to be natural with their feelings, their emotions, and even their bodily functions. When they grow up, we want our children to have highly functioning emotional intelligence and body awareness, right?

So, take it as a good sign.

If your kids start speaking in tongues, crying, releasing their bowels, and clinging to you when you walk in the door, take it as a sign that they love you. Just know that I’m sending you lots of love the next time it happens. Because I know— oh, how I know!—it drives us all up the wall. They save it all for you.