Do American Moms Over-Apologize?
Traveling to my native Finland, I noticed that I had adopted the American habit of constantly saying "I'm sorry" for myself and my kids. Then I took the Nordic approach.
It was funny overhearing myself, upon arriving to my native Finland from my adopted home in the US:
“I’m so sorry!” I said to anyone who would even glance at me, when my toddler first threw a tantrum in a Helsinki, Finland grocery store.
“Ah, please forgive me!” I would say, when we would show up late to a birthday party, or—gasp—forget to buy a birthday present for the child who’s party it was.
“I’m terribly sorry," I would say in a restaurant, after my three boys had made a mess eating in a lunch spot in Ålesund, Norway, as I tried to figure out how to clean it up.
I was so used to feeling like I needed to apologize for, what felt like every little assumed inconvenience to others from normal, common behavior or mishap, that it felt especially surprising, when I got straight up scolded for my choice of words.
“What do you expect? They are kids!” said the restaurant manager in Ålesund, who had come to wipe off the table, frowning.
I was also stunned when the Nordic people I apologized to replied, “no need to apologize,” or “I remember those days!”, or “oh, that has happened to me so many times!”. And, I was truly baffled when they simply didn’t react, at all.
Once, at a playground, sitting in a mud puddle, playing with shovels and buckets with another child, my child accidentally threw mud all over another child’s face and body. As I held my breath trying to figure out what to do and how to react, I realized that it was so typical that the other parent hadn’t even registered it, and the little girl didn’t seem even slightly bothered.
Once I again got back to the US, it felt like moms Stateside were apologizing nonstop, simply just for themselves and their child existing, like I described in this video.
I’m curious to get your thoughts on whether apologizing in these situations was warranted, but, if you are curious to learn what Nordic moms do instead, and want to stop over-apologizing, here’s how I did it and how you can too.
3 Steps to Less “I’m Sorry”
After those few Nordic experiences (especially after the Norwegian restaurant manager berated me!), I just stopped, and this is how I did it, without feeling guilty.
1. Oopsie!
Apologizing is about “expressing regret for something that one has done wrong.” But, in most cases, you nor your child hasn’t done anything wrong, rather, whatever happened just wasn’t the ideal scenario.
For example, when my child accidentally threw mud on the other child, it wasn’t ideal, but it was something expected—if your child is sitting in a pile of mud playing, the mud will fly.
However, we often feel like we should say something to acknowledge the non-ideal situation, so that we are not thought of as inconsiderate or rude, and to seem likable.
To do just that, I have adopted the use of a Nordic interjection to express my awareness of what’s happening, but without apologizing: “oopsie!”
Read more about what it means and how to use it in the Scandi Glossary at the end.
Should you apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong? What are the moms really apologizing for?
2. It happens
Most of these inconveniences (assumed or not) and mishaps, are normal, expected and common—such a child wanting to play with another child’s toys on the playground or a parent forgetting to give his child the right soccer jersey for the “away” sports game.
They are not about anyone doing about wrong, and sometimes they are even completely out of our control. Like tantrums in a grocery store.
Instead of apologizing, we can react to these occurrences like typical things, which frees us from the guilt, and gives us the bandwidth to focus on a positive, simple solution.
“Hey, can my child play with your child?”
“We forgot the right shirt! Does anyone have an extra?”
“I hear you and understand you feel frustrated.” (to your child). “And now we’ll buy what’s on our grocery list, so we can make dinner, and have breakfast tomorrow.” (No need to buy your child every snack or sweet he demands, or give him YouTube on your phone, which only leads to another tantrum when you take it away, even if he continues his meltdown)
Or, like in the case of the mess in the restaurant, we could simply ask:
The boys really enjoyed their meal as you can see! Should I help cleaning up?
Would you try these?
3. Throw on the imaginary invisibility cloak
Some situations are so hard, embarrassing, or impossible to handle, that we wish we could just throw on an invisibility cloak. So let’s do it. I just had that happen on an 8-hour flight from Europe to US, traveling alone with my 3 boys. We had already had multiple unexpected challenges on this return trip, when my three-year-old suddenly had the meltdown of a lifetime, smack in the middle of the flight. Yes, the kind of biting, hitting, throwing, screaming kind of a tantrum, the kind that seems to last forever, and with few available tools in my disposal to calm him down.
As I told this to a friend, she suggested, that “well, in those situations, you could always just buy the nearby passengers a drink,” to ease the inconvenience.
In my Nordic opinion, I wish someone had bought me a drink. I had to not only deal with the inconvenience, I had to try to calm down this child, with nothing, and nowhere to go, at 50,000 feet!
No one of course bought me a drink, but I pretended to throw on an invisibility cloak over our family, had one of his brothers hold him while I grabbed a book from my bag in the overhead bin, and then held him tight, and just started reading. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, he started calming down, stopped screaming, and got soaked up in the story—and then fell asleep.
I did not apologize to anyone (why should I have?), but rather I was proud of myself for how I handled it, and I did treat myself to a glass of bubbly when we eventually got home. And, if this ever happened to you, you should treat yourself too.
So here’s a new Nordic-style mantra, “I don’t need to apologize to you because I, or we, did nothing wrong. I can just say ”Oopsie!”, or focus on the solution, or depending on the situation, not even react at all. I can throw a smile (even if exasperated) to those around me, because anyone who’s a parent knows that this is what it’s like; and those who aren’t parents, don’t need to be hidden from the truth:-)
Now, do you in the US moms over-apologize & would you ever try these Scandi tactics and just stop?
PS. If you want to easily share this with your parent friends, or on your social, you can do so with the button below:
PS. With moms’ lives already so stressful, maybe we can throw guilt to the curb.
Scandi Glossary
OOPSIE = depending on the situation at hand, this means some version of oh wow, oh no, oh my goodness, oh gosh, oh-oh, whoops
This Nordic interjection is cute, fun, light-hearted and works for most occasions to express that something is or has gone slightly sideways, without making it a big deal, and adding a bit of humor to it. You can use it for anything.
Oopsie! Looks like you both got a mud bath! (if either child is visibly bothered, you would of course help.)
“You know your child is wearing the wrong soccer jersey for this tournament?” “Oopsie, we must have left it behind by accident!”
Scandi Smart
READ: 100 things to stop apologizing for, beyond just mom-related things, that American women tend to say “I’m sorry for”.
WATCH: Unnur—created by filmmaker Chris Burkard, this 17-minute documentary released on YouTube in 2020, follows Icelandic adventure photographer and surfer Elli Thor, a single dad raising his eight-year-old daughter in remote corner of the country, unapologetically living the life he loves, and sharing his passion with the outdoors with her, creating a dreamy childhood.
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x Annabella