Between Mothers and Sons
By Stacy Bronec
@stacybronec
On a summer night out on a triple date with two of my closest friends and their husbands, I tell my girlfriends I’m pretty sure my son, Rhett, loves his dad more than me.
“Why do you think that?” one of my friends asks, leaning closer. Our husbands are at the other end of the table, talking and laughing, engrossed in a conversation about football or farming—unaware of how deep ours suddenly became.
“Because he told me last week, ‘I love Dad more than I love you,’” I confirm, pulling a slice of hot pizza off the pan. Beer glasses clank, strangers’ voices in the brewery circle me, and the bright August sun blazes through the windows.
“He didn’t mean it,” one of my friends says confidently, looking me in the eye and then sipping her beer.
“It didn’t even hurt my feelings, actually,” I say, looking at both of them. “I’ve been terrible lately.” I continue to tell my friends about the yelling and the escalating conflicts between me and my seven-year-old son. But the tears begin to build, and I finally squeak out, “I can’t even get upset.”
I set my beer down. “We have days when we get along great,” I say, slowly wiping the condensation on the glass with my thumb. “But then there are times we clash. We just know how to push each other’s buttons.”
“Harvest is always rough,” I say, clearing my throat. “You know how it is,” and I sip my beer, grateful these women know what farm life is like, thankful I don’t have to explain it. “It feels like we always end the summer on a low.”
My friends nod but stay silent.
“I’m always at home. The kids never have to wonder if I’ll be there; they know I will be! And the fact they have clean clothes,” I pause, raising my hands. “Clothes that fit! And dinner on the table every night goes over their heads.” My nose burns; half a beer gives me the courage to go on. “Rich gets to be exciting and fun! And sometimes they don’t see him for days at a time, so they actually miss him,” I say, tilting my head toward my husband.
Then, tears begin to roll down my cheeks. “I just feel like the kids don’t care about me or see all I do. And when Rich is gone for such long hours, I resent him.” My mind flashes to my frustration with my husband and his work schedule and all the evenings alone with our three kids—marked with harsh words and clipped bedtime routines. “And then I take it out on them.”
I sigh, wiping my fingers on my napkin. “I just don’t know how we got here,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.
“You’re doing so much better than you think you are,” one of my friends says. “I know you’re a good mom.”
I shrug my shoulders and exhale, wishing her words were true.
***
“You used to be nice, Mom!” he shouts, his fists at his temples. “Sometimes I wish I was a baby again because then you would be nice to me!” His words hit me like a punch to the gut. My stomach bubbles, knowing my harsh words made him feel this way.
I can’t help but think that my son’s words reflect my own words and actions. He’s learned to yell in response to me yelling at him.
I stare at him. I picture him as a newborn, how his cries made me cry—I bounced or nursed him, shushing him, kissing his cheeks, wanting to take away any of his hurts.
Now, I’m the reason he’s crying.
My mind flashes back to the summer checklist I wrote in June when the weeks of play, hot days, and fun lay ahead of us like a wide-open field of possibilities. I planned to do a Bible study with the kids every week (we made it one week), I wanted to do a monthly one-on-one date with each kid (I took each kid once all summer), and I wanted to make time to just play with them (and I only remember a handful of times I jumped on the trampoline with them).
I imagined the summer as a reset when I could nurture our relationships with all our time together. I planned to focus more on them without school and schedules in our way.
But the summer flew by, and between haying and harvest, the kids and I spent countless hours together, leaving us all hot and tired of each other by the end of August. I hoped to see a change in Rhett and my relationship. Instead, I sent him back to school, feeling guilty that I wasted another summer with him.
***
I don’t remember when I started feeling overwhelmed or raising my voice at the kids. It happened gradually, so slowly, I didn’t even realize it became something that happened more often than it should.
The baby stage, exhausting as it was, felt like I was in control. I kept a schedule, changed diapers, and breastfed on demand. But now my kids talk back and disobey—their dimpled hands and pudgy cheeks long gone—and any control I once thought I had, is slipping through my fingers.
When I feel at my lowest: when I wonder if I should have gone back to work full-time, or when my role on our farm feels insignificant, or when I feel like I’m “just” a mom, I see their behavior as a reflection of my parenting—a report card on my motherhood.
Those feelings, coupled with being alone with them for hours, and when they repeatedly don’t listen or blatantly disobey—I snap. I yell. I grasp for any sort of control I can get. When the words fly from my mouth—and the kids go quiet—I feel like I do have control.
The anger exploding from my body is a relief. For a second, I can release everything I’m trying to hold—their feelings, my feelings, the invisible workload of motherhood, and all my insecurities.
But just as quickly, the relief fades to guilt.
I picture the orange Post-it on my office wall: “In your anger, do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Or the other sticky note with a line from one of the many parenting books I’ve read, “Because any change in their behavior starts with a change in yours.”
Parenting seems easy on paper.
***
“Daddy, you’re home!” the kids yell in unison, dropping their forks onto their plates. I sigh, half relieved to have help with the rest of dinner and bedtime but annoyed that it’s almost 7 p.m. and he’s just coming through the door.
But I smile when he walks in, holding his coffee mug from this morning in one hand and his lunch box in the other. He places his empty cooler on the kitchen counter, grabs a plate, and starts making a taco.
“How was school, kids?” he asks, scooping rice onto his plate.
“Are you gonna tell him, Mom?” Rhett asks, raising his eyebrows at me. His teeth are clenched in a challenge.
“Tell him what?” I say, my fork pausing mid-air.
“Just tell him!” Rhett yells.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell him. That you and I were arguing at dinner? No. I wasn’t planning to tell him,” I say, setting my fork next to my plate, thinking how quickly the evening soured.
I picked up the kids from the bus after school, Rhett and I hugged, and he said he had a good day. Having already experienced kindergarten and first grade with him, I knew not to immediately pepper him with questions about school. Once we got home, the kids ditched their backpacks and collapsed on the couch to watch TV while I made dinner. Then one question I asked at the table—now I can’t recall—set him off. The pleasant afternoon went in a flash, our voices harsh, tempers flaring.
Rich walks to the table and sits on the empty chair. “What’s going on?” he asks, his eyes moving between Rhett and me.
“Nothing! I don’t want to talk about it. Why is everyone getting mad at me?” Rhett yells, throwing his head onto the table.
“No one is getting mad at you, buddy,” Rich says, touching Rhett’s back.
“I just want to go to my room and finish eating alone!” he says, stomping from the table.
Rich follows him and closes the door. I hear Rhett continuing to yell and Rich’s calm voice in response. My husband can diffuse our son when I’m unable to. My jealousy flares when I see my son and his dad’s easy relationship. Isn’t there supposed to be a special bond between a mother and her son?
I clear the plates from the table, leaving my husband’s full plate alone.
***
The next day after school, the kids jump on the bounce house in the front yard. The sun is shining, but there’s a slight breeze—making it bearable to be outside. Instead of making dinner, I decide to join them and plop myself down in a lawn chair next to the bounce house.
The kids’ screams and laughter float above the whirring of the motor. The noise is faint, but I hear a slight whistling of air. I see a dime-sized hole in the inflatable monstrosity—an impulse purchase in the spring of 2020. When I’m about to get up and examine the tear up close, Rhett jumps off the bounce house and tiptoes barefoot through the dry, crunchy grass toward me. He collapses on my lap and drapes his tan arms, like his dad’s, over mine—a contrast to my pale skin. He runs his fingers up and down my legs, and I wrap my arms around him, kissing the back of his head.
“I love you, Mom,” he says, jumping back onto the bounce house.
“Love you too, Rhett!” I yell, my eyes welling with tears.
I often mask my feelings of being overwhelmed, overstimulated, and unappreciated with anger, unleashing it on my kids. And I worry that someday that’s all they will remember about me.
But like the bounce house, our relationships need constant repair and attention. And maybe, I am doing better than I think. In the past, I’ve seen my outbursts, followed by an apology, as signs of being a bad mom.
But maybe, those moments aren’t representations of failures. The layers of apologies are proof of me trying—again and again.
Without thinking, I run and jump onto the bounce house—surprising and delighting my kids. We jump and laugh, and I forget about the hole. I do not wonder if we’ll need to patch it.
I do not wonder if it will hold us all on its own.
Guest essay written by Stacy Bronec. Stacy lives in rural Montana with her husband and their three kids on their family farm and ranch. She’s a school counselor by training and a writer at heart. Years ago, she dreamt of big city life, but then she fell in love with a farmer and moved to the middle of nowhere. Now, she uses stories to make sense of the beauty and challenges of rural life. You can connect with Stacy on her website or Substack, where she writes a monthly newsletter and an interview series: Rural Women Cultivating a Life They Love.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.