Loveletter to the Nuisance Child

Image from Holeysocksart from Pixabay

A Giant Hug for Your Inner Ragamuffin

“Oh, Herzzenkind! Get down from there before you hurt yourself!”

This was a refrain shouted prayerfully by my 87-year-old German grandma pretty much daily. I was 5, and I was a handful. Looking back, I must have panicked her a whole lot. Maybe I kept her young. She did live to be 104 and every summer it was just her and me in her big old house. She always let me be me and just prayed for the best.

She didn’t make me feel naughty or “bad”. But that’s not true of all of the adults in my little rambunctious life.

Have you ever been called a handful? Or too much?

Or even worse, a nuisance? A motormouth?

Ugh. It’s so heartbreaking and demoralizing. It can really put the idea in your head that something is wrong with you, that you’re not normal, that they don’t even like spending time with you. That they’re forced to… against their will.

That you are in need of major improvement. Or a personality transplant.

Or an exorcism.

They were too overwhelmed to give you what you needed. They couldn’t see your magic through the dirty film of their conditioning. Children were seen and not heard, they stayed quiet and didn’t ask for much. This was their expectation, and you didn’t meet it. Instead, you exceeded it. By far.

So if you’re like me and this was your childhood reality, have I got some truth for you. They were wrong. They were ill-equipped. They had no idea what to do and it showed.

They gave you labels that weren’t helpful. They didn’t have the tools to care for you and support you as they should have.

The universe sort of stiffed them too, but that’s not your job to fix. It’s theirs.

Here’s the thing: You’ve got access to those tools now. All of them. The internet exists, and it’s a great place to start. Experts share tools freely, like Patrik Teahan, LICSW on TikTok, and Dr Taelor at SOS w/Dr Taelor on Instagram. And normal everyday people do too, the ones who like to tell their stories and share what helped them. You have so many opportunities now to help your inner ragamuffin feel valued and seen… and heard.

Let’s reframe.

When you emptied the junk drawer onto the kitchen table to try and invent something new “for science” and they said “you’re such a nuisance, you’re always into things!” they really meant that you were too curious for them, too energetic. Your high curiosity wasn’t a match for their low patience. You just weren’t a good match.

When they said you were stubborn, you with the skinned knees and bloody palms from trying to learn to ride that bike that was too big for you, what they really meant was that you were tenacious. You didn’t stay down when you fell, you got back up. You didn’t give up when they hoped you would. They were tired, worn down by life. They wanted to go lie down on the couch with a light beer and watch The Dukes of Hazard. Your inquisitive energy jacked up their sloth time.

And then after you grew up, they sometimes gave you labels like “flaky”.

“You’re so flaky, you can’t make an important decision like this based solely on a lack of happiness”. To me, this means that they didn’t know how to listen to their intuition, or even to their own hearts. They were ok with settling, while you maybe weren’t. They didn’t really understand you, and they were set in their ways; they thought you should adopt their ways too.

Sometimes it’s fear or even jealousy. It’s hard to leave something familiar, even when it’s become untenable and painful. Some people don’t have the courage to walk away from things that no longer serve them. It takes bravery to end something so familiar, even when it’s dysfunctional. And people who don’t have that bravery tend to criticize those who do, under the guise of “helping”.

I’ve spent 26 years picking up tools, trying them out, keeping some, and discarding others. It’s been a journey. One of my favorites is radical reparenting. I love making promises to little rambunctious Herzzenkind (German for “child of my heart”) and then keeping them. She loves it too. Her chubby dirty cheeks glow with pride.

‘What can I give my inner child right now?’ is a question we need to ask ourselves when we’re feeling resentful or unheard, unseen. And then just listen to what our intuition tells us. (My intuition always answers “gelato”, but then again my intuition grew up in my mom’s ice cream shop, so sometimes I have to veto and ask again until I get an answer with less sugar and dairy).

It also helps to try and replace those shitty-voiced comments with the affirming voice of someone who loved you unconditionally. For example, if something happens to remind me how much my 6th-grade teacher Miss Olson loathed me and loved making me feel inferior, I replace her voice with the saint Mr. Rogers, telling us all how special and smart and wanted we were, no matter what. This works, I promise.

Every time I see a photo of little girl me, I stop and tell her she is loved, she is safe, and I’ll always catch her. She seems to like this because she smiles inside me every time and I feel a little satisfied internal flutter, like she just jumped out of the swingset and I was there to catch her.

Why not give this a go?

Go on, Herzzenkind. What’s the worst that can happen?