Accidentally Lashing Out At Your Kids Doesn’t Make You A ‘Pink Tote Lid’ Mom — But What You Do Afterward Makes All The Difference
Learning how to regulate your emotions is one of the hardest parts of being a parent.
MART PRODUCTION | Canva Pro After a tearful teenager hopped on social media to share a recent interaction she had with her mother, many viewers, whether they were children or parents, came to the horrific realization that they were either the girl or her mother.
In a newfound trend, viewers came together to reveal their own “pink tote lid” mom stories, whether they were the product of a pink tote lid mom or they were a pink tote lid mom themselves.
A teen girl shared a story detailing the behaviors of her ‘pink tote lid’ mom.
In a since-deleted TikTok video (stitched below), a teenage girl named Jaycie filmed herself in the darkness of her bedroom following a tense argument with her mother.
According to Jaycie, who was whispering to avoid being overheard by her parents, she had just gotten out of the shower and was drying her hair when her mother began pounding on the door, demanding that she give her a hand.
“She goes, ‘I need you to put the pink things in my room,’” Jaycie recalled. When she asked for clarification of what the “pink things” her mom was referring to were, her mother pitched a fit.
“She said, ‘Jaycie, just put the [expletive] pink tote lids in my [expletive] bedroom. The pink [expletive] tote lids, are you [expletive] dumb?’” Jaycie said.
“Then my dad comes running out like, ‘Who are you talking to? You should never [expletive] talk back to your mother. They're both just going off on me.”
The incident left Jaycie on the verge of tears, and her emotional response resonated across TikTok.
The teen's video inspired others to share their own stories of having 'pink tote lid' parents who often snapped at them in unwarranted frustration.
“My first ‘pink tote lid moment’ was when I was 6 or 7. My mom got angry at me for being upset, so she packed my things into the garbage bags and told me she was done with me,” Bri Clancy shared in a TikTok video.
“She threw my stuff onto the front lawn and told me she was calling my father, who I hadn’t seen in years, to come take me because it was his turn to deal with me. I started talking back, so she hit me."
"My father never came, and I developed a lifelong fear of him and a codependent attachment to her. I had to apologize and unpack my own bags.”
“My pink tote lid moment was when my family took a trip to Chicago when I was 16 because I wanted to see "Wicked," but the first day there, I got really sick, but my family didn’t want to cancel anything because we already paid for it, so I still had to go to Navy Pier and Six Flags the first two days, then on day three I said I wasn’t having a good time (because I was so sick and being forced to walk around all day every day) and my dad screamed at me in the food court of the Museum of Science and Industry for being ungrateful and selfish because I was the whole reason we even took the trip he didn’t want to be on in the first place,” a woman named Emily shared.
The pink tote lid trend not only gave children with emotionally volatile parents a platform, but it also gave some parents a reality check that they had unintentionally subjected their children to their feelings of anger and frustration.
One woman shared the moment she realized that she may be a pink tote lid mom.
After learning what a pink tote lid mom was, a woman named Aleseexo prayed that her children never feel abused, neglected, or scared of her.
The mom admitted that she sometimes gets overstimulated and lashes out at her children in the heat of the moment.
“Parenthood isn’t easy, and not one of us is perfect,” she wrote in the caption of her TikTok video. “My biggest piece of advice in those moments is to show your kids patience and accountability, and give them and yourself some grace!”
Parents are human, and they are bound to become frustrated with their kids from time to time and unintentionally react aggressively toward them.
Lashing out occasionally does not make you a 'pink tote lid' parent.
However, if you chronically yell at your kids, even over minor inconveniences, the inability to regulate emotions is a problem.
According to a 2013 study published in the Journal of Child Development, children who are constantly barked at by their parents are more likely to develop behavioral problems, low self-esteem, and depression.
“If this is your ultimate dynamic with your child, and there's not a lot of other positive interactions, [that] is going to interfere with the connection, which then interferes with their behaviors," Jazmine McCoy, a clinical psychologist based in the Atlanta suburbs, told CNBC Make It.
"Because kids who ... feel more connected with us and feel more supported by us, well, they're going to do better. They're going to be more successful, happier, etc."
While even the best parents are bound to lose their temper with their kids occasionally, constant shouting does little to actually correct the behavior that started the yelling in the first place.
"We just need to remember that when we yell, our children are actually not learning. Because they're stressed, and we don't learn when we're stressed," McCoy said.
According to McCoy, parents are more likely to yell when they already dealing with feelings of helplessness and anxiety, whether those feelings have to do with their children or not.
She advised parents to identify the triggers that cause them to yell by engaging in some self-reflection to get a better understanding of their emotions.
“What are the situations where I feel the most frustrated? Why does this specific behavior frustrate me? What is it about the frustrating behavior?”
These are just a few examples of the questions parents should ask themselves for the sake of their children.
Recognizing that you may act like a "pink tote lid" parent is a good start to correcting the issue and strengthening the relationships with your children.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.