Scrambled Eggs: Mindful Parenting in a Pandemic

During this pandemic, many of us parents are spending a lot more time with our children. With more contact, there's often more conflict. The last half year may have seen some of your worst parenting moments—but also some of your best. Certainly, both hold true for me, proud but crazy-busy and pooped out mother of a 12- and 14-year-old. 

How can mindfulness practice help us over the coming months?

The obvious answer is that mindfulness will help us catch our temper, be more attuned to our children, and keep us in touch with the beauty of ordinary moments. But with all honestly—and I write this as a lifelong meditator—applying mindfulness to the active moments of parenting is very, very hard to sustain for more than a few instances or days.

A less obvious, but perhaps more powerful, potential of mindfulness is when it is brought to our internal experience—our thoughts, attitudes, and emotions. Once we truly understand why we repeatedly behave in certain ways, then we have the chance to shift from reacting unconsciously to responding consciously.

I began to experience this shift after a little episode that I call “Scrambled Eggs.”

When my kids were around the ages of three and five, we lived in an apartment that had a rug in the dining room. One day, I served them some soft scrambled eggs for breakfast and went back to the kitchen.

When I returned to the dining room, I saw that there were scrambled egg bits on the rug. Uuuuugh! With great exasperation, I went under the table and began trying to pick the gooey pieces out of the fibers. I started to feel frustrated, as egg slid even further into the gaps and began to smear into the rug. Getting hot and sweaty, I started grousing at them sitting up above, giggling and kicking their legs.

As I was chiding them, I started listening to myself as if it were someone else speaking. I heard myself saying, “How did these scrambled eggs get onto the floor? For heaven’s sake, how many times have I told you to eat with your chin over your plate? I just cleaned this rug. Oh, you think this is funny? Maybe you should come down here and clean it up.”

As I heard myself speaking this way, I thought, Wow, that sounds harsh. These are really high expectations. Then from a remote corner of my mind, a thought arose: I wonder if I’m this hard on myself? Yikes.

The next time I sat down to meditate, I decided to listen to how I talk to myself. I settled in and took a few deep breaths. Then, I just listened to my mind. After a few minutes, I heard the same voice I heard talking to my kids, loud and clear. It said, “Sit up. Straighten your shoulders. You’ve been meditating for 30 years and you can’t follow a single breath? Pfft. Pathetic.” As soon as I heard that voice, I had three insights, each coming to me in rapid succession.

The first insight was that the way that I speak to my children and my spouse is a reflection of how I speak to myself.

The second realization was that the way that I speak to myself is an internalized voice from one of my parents. That parent had very high expectations and often spoke to me in harsh, critical tones. Over time, I had adopted that parental voice as my own. Now I was speaking in that same voice to my children.

The third insight was, “No wonder I haven’t been enjoying meditation so much. I’m sitting here using the time to beat myself up, being critical and harsh about my performance.”

Following these realizations, I felt deep compassion for myself. Oh, you poor thing, suffering from your own berating for decades. Something in me relaxed and I felt freed from this oppressive, unconscious voice.

For the next several weeks, I took notice of whenever I heard that judgmental voice, and switched it out for a kinder, more compassionate one. I would even fake it a little bit. If I heard, “Wow, you’re such a bad meditator,” I would imagine myself as a beloved dog, and I would visualize holding my hands in my face and saying, “Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good meditator? Oh, you’re a good meditator! Yes, you are!” Very soon I began to really enjoy meditating, because it became a time of care, love, and appreciation. Not to mention lightheartedness.

I also began practicing lovingkindness meditation with myself as the primary recipient of care. I would repeat the classic phrases: “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe and protected, may I live with ease.”

Within a few weeks of making these changes, I noticed that the way that I spoke to my children and spouse began changing. Instead of speaking critically, I began to speak in a kinder, gentler way. I was still clear that my kids needed to follow my requests, but the tone and the expectation behind those communications were entirely different. I also began to enjoy meditating for, like, the first time ever.

Insights such as these—our patterns of speech with our children, the influence of our past, and charting new, healing pathways—arise from a strong internal awareness. This internal awareness can be brought to bear right after a difficult moment, during meditation, and at times even as the drama is unfolding. Cultivating it can shift all this extra pandemic parenting into a whole new, wonderful place—that, and a dining room with a hard floor.