Fight In Front Of The Kids? Hey! Maybe It’s Not So Bad After All: The Unconscious Mars

jonbenet230806_228x471.jpgRemember that gal with this bumper sticker on her car (SUV): “Some Days I Hate Being Me But Then I Smile When I Realize I’m Not You”? I saw her again today and did something slinky.

I really wanted to know what she looked like but I did not want to pull alongside her and look at her… perhaps say, “hi” through our open windows because my thoughts about her are so negative and I’m not a smile-in-your-face-while-I-stab-you type. But I was dying of curiosity (yes I acknowledge the drama) so I pulled in next to her but up a space so I could use my rear view mirror.

Now I have to say this is unusual for me. I know a lot of you do this stuff all the time and I don’t care that you do. I have already admitted to being interested in hearing the inside story from the tabloid reporter on the Jon Benet Ramsey case, I’m just sayin’…

I am just saying I don’t usually do this stuff but I surely know how if necessary so I parked my car just so and cocked the mirror…

She was just as I expected, she was sort of the anti-Elsa P. Blond with a neat ponytail, full makeup next to me who usually arrives on a scooter in my pajama pants. In whatever case she very few together and what I thought was this:

“Don’t fight in front of the children.”

You know, I don’t think not fighting in front of the children is the necessarily the best thing. It ignores the fact kids know when something is up and breeds passive aggressiveness. It also does not allow children to learn something incredibly important, that is that people can have conflicts… fight it out and this does not mean the sky falls.

What do you think of this? Are you Italian? (joke but not really) Where is your Mars?

16 thoughts on “Fight In Front Of The Kids? Hey! Maybe It’s Not So Bad After All: The Unconscious Mars”

  1. I agree. When I was 19 or so I had a friend that would come over to my house, I still lived at home. She would get overwhelmed because we all yelled a lot,lol. I never noticed it until she brought my attention to it. Now I can’t just sit and be quiet when I am steamed. I am a yeller and sometimes it resembles a temper tantrum,LOL.

  2. I am also opposite from the waspy white perfect blondy. I am too dark to be a part of that club. Hmmm nor would I wan’t to.

  3. Disagree, if that’s ok, E. I cowered from my parents’ fights. My father’s alcoholic rage and anger and violence were terrifying to me as a child. So sad, even my dog slinked under my bed when she heard his car pull in at night. I avoided having friends over because I was so humilated that adults could act so crudely, in front of children they were supposed to nurture and protect.
    Signed, Not a Wasp

  4. Mari – I understand, I agree with you in that circumstance and that is a very sad story. 🙁

    I think it depends on the fight and the parents and the children involved which is not what I wrote but when I write something like this is meant to counter something that is current conventional wisdom when one size rarely fits all.

    Also, reading your comment, I think it is as much a comment on alcoholism than it is on fighting in front of kids. I am very sorry you had to deal with that!

  5. I am sort of middle of the road on this one. mars in leo, in the fourth, so you can see i do get mad at home, virgo moon, usually about details… I think it depends if you fight fair. I do, but if I am fighting with someone who doesn’t, I don’t want that in front of my kids. Or if there can be no resolution, or I am just being picked on. I don’t like fighting in general, although, I do think modeling conflict and resolution is important.

  6. Mars in Pisces/8th house. Scotch/Irish (& very waspy- which I feel like I should apologize for!) No parent’s fighting in my house growing up – zip. My mother is 100% Irish but no temper. Rather a peacemaker because there’d been so many bad tempered fights in her family growing up. I’m very uncomfortable with fighting in front of anyone, children or otherwise (not saying it’s bad to do – I don’t know if it is or isn’t, just that it makes me personally uncomfortable.).

  7. My parents never fought in front of the children, not at the very end when they started their incredibly bitter and going into its uh 13th? 14th? year now seperation/divorce/never let the other one go/whatever the eff it is thing, when they both began to reveal the worst things they could think of about the other. “Did you know I haven’t had sex with your mother in 11 years?” “Your dad crashed THREE Cars in FOUR years because he was DRUNK!”

    Ugh.

    And all that after years and years and years of walking on eggshells because you never knew when you were going to stumble across a landmine. (And of course if you did you got it full blast because you were -obviously- acting as a concious agent for the other party)

    I did learn all about how important it was to keep up appearances though. Mars square pluto, 1st house mars in capricorn, pluto in libra probably cnj MC.

    Not Italian, Irish.

    I didn’t learn how to fight properly and I wish I had.

  8. No open fighting here. Left me unequipped for my last relationship and with understanding my aries descendent and mars in libra in 12th. I grew up watching my parent’s kind of snap at each other when they were angry. And my dad when he was mad about work would rant in the kitchen with a lot of swearing to my mother. In my current relationship we have tried different fighting styles – but we are very respectful when we fight thankfully – so if we do have kids i won’t be afraid to fight in front of them. Resolution when we aren’t being defensive works. Going for a run and discussing it later. I saw this as a kid. What I didn’t see though was the conversation/resolution – i’ve had to learn that on my own.
    I’m scottish.

  9. My parents did all of their communicating in their bedroom. We kids would wake up to the sounds of their voices rumbling and they would carry on for hours.
    They didn’t really fight a lot, though our family fought a lot. Just kids with kids or kids with parents. Hardly ever parent on parent.

    As a result I feel very badly when I fight with my partner. I feel like I’m not doing it right or something!

  10. I wish that for just once, my parents would STOP fighting in front of the children. They don’t know when to drop it. That’s the whole problem. JUST DROP IT.

  11. I’m the “yeller” god dropped into my white-bread, anglo family as some sort of cosmic joke and torture, for all of us.

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