Anger: Someone Else's Problem (more of my misguided thinking)

Arrogance is a funny thing. I am generally not an angry person. Before having children I used to think that anger was a problem other people had to overcome. So misguided was my thinking that I would even skip over chapters on the subject of anger in mussar seforim. I honestly thought I had overcome the bad trait of becoming angry.

I was wrong.

Anyone with a toddler knows that you get angry. You can't help it, it just happens. All it takes is one time trying to change a diaper with an uncooperative toddler wriggling around and resisting your every effort to put on a clean diaper. There are numerous things that a toddler can get into that can sometimes just make your blood boil. I never remember yelling at anyone before having children. I catch myself on occasion, and the fact that I have this latent anger disturbs me. I am comforted somewhat when I see other parents out in public who are dealing with the same thing. It is always nice to see another child behaving worse than your own.

Raising children is the supreme challenge. It teaches us all the areas that we ourselves need to improve upon; selflessness, anger, refined speech, etc. While trying to improve the behavior of our children, we learn the need to improve ourselves.