Actually, There Is Something Wrong with You

On Battling Personal Wickedness and Weakness

Feb 14, 2025

Recently, I went to confession. I confessed a sin that has come up frequently in the confessional since my eldest was born: losing my temper with my children and being too harsh with them. I probably average about two and a half weeks between each confession when I have to turn around and confess it again.

We’ve been going through an especially hard time with my youngest. There has been a lot of unexplained and prolonged crying and screaming. She outright resists attempts at co-regulation and refuses to communicate even though she usually excels in verbal communication for her age. At bedtime, she often seeks or generates conflict before she can seem to fall asleep. It’s been exhausting, and I’ve found my fuse getting shorter and shorter.

Unfortunately, the blueprint I have for how parents deal with this isn’t a great one. I remember my parents telling me “If you don’t stop crying, I will give you something to cry about.” If we cried for “no reason” or beyond what was “reasonable,” we were isolated, or worse. My parents were young and I know they were trying their best with the blueprints they had as well, but obviously, this isn’t an effective way to foster communication, safety, and companionship with your children. Even though my mind knows this, I often find that in moments of sleep deprivation and over-stimulation from all the crying, my intellect becomes clouded and I feel irrationally angry and act in ways I regret almost instantly.

Anyway, back to confession. I’m a very efficient confessor. I am in and out in under 5 minutes. I name my sin, the number of times I committed it, receive my penance, recite my Act of Contrition, and I’m out. If the priest gives me any advice at all, it’s usually pretty generic and honestly unhelpful. I don’t tell stories and I try my best not to qualify my sins. Naming them outright without qualifiers, I find, actually humbles me and keeps me from doing mental gymnastics in an attempt to measure how bad or not bad they are. They are sins, period. I also try not to calculate if something is a venial or mortal sin for the same reasons.

Lately, however, I’ve been pretty sick and tired of myself and making the same mistakes over and over again. I decided I was going to go into more detail with the priest, hoping he would give me advice I had not heard before. It did not take long for the priest to stop me and put me in my place. He basically said I needed to get it together and that my children are not the problem, I am. I knew that, of course. They’re innocent babies. They never truly warrant my wrath. And yet, I left the confessional in tears.

As I sat down in a pew to do my penance, a lot of things were running through my mind. I hate to admit it but I realized there were some unhelpful and unchristian mantras I was holding on to. These mantras made me question the priest’s advice. Clearly, he was implying there was something deficient in me that needed fixing. This is totally antithetical to the popular rhetoric directed at mothers at this time: there is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect the way you are. You’re doing your best, mama. We’re told that it’s okay that our house is messy; we don’t need to be perfect; of course, you will “lose it” sometimes — there’s no village! You are already everything your baby needs.

What I’ve found is that some of this rhetoric actually outsources the autonomy we have over our own parenting. If you are already “enough", then there is something outside you that is making you act in this undesirable way or is preventing you from meeting your goals. If only I had a village; if only my extended family could help more frequently; if only I had more time to my gosh darn self I would be so happy and patient and kind and downright joyful! And yet, for whatever reason, God has deprived me of the exact amenity that would fix it all, just when I need it. It’s not me that’s the problem because I just know that if I had “x, y, and z” I actually would be a very good mom! And this is what social media tells us, too. If you’re not living up to your vision of motherhood it’s because your village isn’t village-ing enough, you don’t have the right colic medicine or the right bassinet, you can’t get to the gym, your hormones are imbalanced, etc.

And while it’s true that the pressures of capitalism, childhood wounds, lack of support, and lacking a blueprint from a solid nuclear family can all be stumbling blocks — the problem is that by outsourcing my autonomy in this way I am also circumventing taking responsibility for my own decrepitness and wickedness. I cannot change my childhood or the fact that my mother will never babysit for me — so why dwell on these things, and continue to blame them for my everyday behavior when God would not ask me to do something impossible, even if it is only possible with his help? If I am not taking responsibility for the ways in which I am totally morally impoverished then I am not acknowledging that I need God.

So yes, actually, there is something wrong with me: it’s called original sin. But God wants to be invited into my weakness so he can transform it. How will he do that if I keep saying “Hang on, God, I got it. Once I pull up my bootstraps and have my raw carrot salad every day, I won’t be a wicked wench to my kids anymore — I just know I have what it takes!”? It doesn’t matter how many cards have been stacked against me, it matters what I do with the hand I’ve been dealt and how I intend to make the best of it.

You see, I have been praying about this and repenting this whole time, but even in my prayers, I realized I was essentially asking God to do the hard work for me. I wanted to wake up the next day after a confession with unlimited patience and compassion and never think about so much as whispering a harsh word to my children again. And while the sacrament of confession does give me more grace to get closer to that ideal, it hasn’t actually addressed the root of the problem. Because I thought I could muscle through it on my own, I wasn’t letting God in. I wasn’t admitting how truly weak I am. It’s silly how often I have been baffled at my own wickedness. I gave him two options: magically resolve it overnight, or stand by while I do it myself.

As I looked in the mirror that night before bed, without much thought I found myself quietly singing a worship song I had not heard in years

“I need you, Lord, I need you. Every hour I need you. My one defense, my righteousness, Oh God, I need you.” The Holy Spirit sent that to me, straight to my heart and lips! I need God. I can’t ask him to raise my children for me, but I can ask him to transform me so I can do it well. This transformation is so utterly painful — in part, it’s painful because the person I was before would not even recognize who I am now. It’s almost like in childbirth and every day since then, I died — and then God raised me into someone new and unrecognizable. In becoming a mother I became a little girl again, and God is raising me new almost from scratch. To become the woman he intends, I have to painfully slough off my own flesh— the remnants of who I once was — much like Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

So what are the practical steps I’m taking to change my mindset, open my heart to the Lord, and remember in my anger that I need God’s help?

One thing I want to do is add more structure to our rhythms. We generally let our daily rhythm revolve around meals, free play, and whatever tasks we have for the day. We also do a little bit of preschool where we learn colors, numbers, the days of the week, a few songs, and a new prayer every month. But I would also like to add in time to worship every day. I used to lead worship occasionally in college and graduate school, so I’m no stranger to getting out my guitar and singing to the Lord with some pals. Unfortunately, I have not done this but maybe once since my eldest was born almost 3 years ago. Singing and playing instruments is great for nervous system regulation and musical enrichment, but also meditating on the truths of our faith every day with my children,1 I think, is a great way to fortify our bond with faithful fellowship. Additionally, I find most worship songs are about needing God and the way he provides for us — so it can be a very practical reminder for those moments in which I am tempted to wrath.

The second rhythm I want to implement is actually something we used to do when we had table space to leave all the things out and not have to put them away each day — but I want to make time to be creative alongside my children every day. Drawing, painting, or molding play dough. Since our move to the Northeast, we fell out of this rhythm, especially because my youngest dropped her second nap (which is when creative time would usually happen). But now my youngest is old enough to get involved too (even though she does love to chew on crayons, still… and will likely eat the dough as well) I want to bring this rhythm back because it’ll be a chance in the afternoon to slow down, reconnect, and regulate our nervous systems. During this time I also want to start doing zentangles!

I am talking about nervous system regulation because while there is a lot of surrender that God requires of us for transformation, I think we also have a responsibility to use what we have already been given to cultivate fertile ground for that transformation. The number one “trigger” for anger for me is overstimulation — an inability to process the overwhelming stimuli around me — this overwhelm prevents me from asking “What is the next right step?” By using what God has already given me (time, instruments, art supplies, staying nourished, worship music, etc.) I can be more open and receptive to his movements and commands. I will be more likely to stop and ask for his help.

Other ideas for cultivating the fertile ground in your heart and mind include removing noise and busyness from your day so you can actually be available when God wants to speak to you, cutting back on social media and the endless consumption of ideas, or promoting general health and wellness so you think less about how your body hurts or doesn’t work the way it should etc. etc.

And to be clear, the priest I confessed to did not just tell me I needed to get it together. He also said that I need to have time to myself and ask for more help. Where I began to feel discouraged and even dispaired is that my husband actually prioritizes that for me already. I already go to the gym a few times a week, have lovely book clubs, and if I ever need him to step in so I can disappear upstairs to space out in bed or in the shower until I regroup, he makes that happen, too. I get a lot more alone time than many other moms I know. I may not have a babysitter or family close by as the priest suggested, but I just don’t feel like I need more alone time. So then, I started to ask “If I don’t need more alone time, what do I need?” I realized I could do a lot more during the day to invite God to subvert my wickedness and weakness and embrace joy where there used to be frustration. I do need to pray more, but the rosary or trying to read scripture with small children can be more frustrating; feeling like they are not cooperating or are getting in the way is just another temptation to anger in this season. But I know they will sing and dance with me, we already do so much of that! And now we will direct more of that time to God.

Anyway, wrath and anger with my children is something God has been working on in me for a long time, and I feel like this was the breakthrough I need for the next “level” of transformation. I have so much growing to do, and I hope that by sharing this I’ve encouraged you to ponder how you can cultivate fertile ground for God to transform your wickedness and weakness. I’d love to hear what resonated with you or what has worked for you when it comes to overcoming anger and frustration with your children. One of the best pieces of encouragement I’ve encountered is in Little Women when Marmee tells Jo that she struggled with anger early on in motherhood, too. I could just read that passage over and over again. I wish I could write a letter to Marmee or get coffee with her! She is who I want to be when I grow up.

A Mother's Cloister

Discussion about this post