Breaking Things
Emily Paulos
By Anne Moore, Medford, Massachusetts, U.S.
It rained all morning on Monday, and by lunchtime I could feel the rage like a hot stone in my throat. In response to my turning off the television, my 4-year-old son had gone into the back yard and was upending every piece of patio furniture and play equipment he could find. My daughter, who is 8, was sitting at the top of the stairs, furiously blinking back tears.
“None of the rules make sense, and they keep changing.” She was ostensibly talking about television, but I feel the same way. When I had my son at a public park the other day—which I know is allowed—a random stranger threatened to call the police on us. My mother-in-law comes over in a mask and rubber gloves, desperate to see the kids and then spending most of the time she’s here yelling at them to stand farther away from her. I could feel the frustration and anger coming off her in waves, and my son’s screams travel through the bathroom window to press in on me like a stern hand. What kinds of people were they going to become after all this? What kinds of people could they become?
I took a deep breath and looked at Izzy. “I have an idea,” I told her. “Wanna break something?”
***
Instead of regular drinking glasses, we repurpose jars in our house: jelly, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, what have you. On her most recent visit, my mom returned from Target with a set of cut-glass tumblers, which she left on the counter as a silent accusation. When I asked her about them, she said: “now you can have real cups!” I ferreted them away in the basement, possibly to re-gift but mostly to be forgotten.
I made the kids put on boots and sunglasses, and we stepped out onto the patio, still glossy with rain. “We’ll take turns,” I told them. “First Izzy, then Teddy, then Mommy. Throw the cup at the ground as hard as you can, and you can yell anything you want when you do it. You can even swear if you want to, you won’t get in trouble.”
Izzy went first, with a wordless scream. After the shatter, she and Teddy looked up at me sheepishly, and we burst out laughing. I could see my own disbelief mirrored in their eyes—is this allowed? Won’t we get in trouble?
On my turn, I picked the cup up with both hands and hurled it at the ground with all my strength, feeling the scream rise through my body. I felt a little breathless after, and Izzy and Teddy laughed again. “Mommy, you’re so loud!”