Love Rewired: Using Your Brain To Mend Your Heart by David Kavanagh

Author:David Kavanagh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orpen Press
Published: 2016-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

A Day in the Life

It might be a good idea to plot what happens in the brain of a parent on a typical day just to give us a clearer picture of how it can be so stressful.

Jane takes her two children shopping to the local shopping centre. Aged five and three, both children are at a difficult age. When they get to the shopping centre, her eldest, Nathan, runs away from Jane towards his favourite toy shop, leaving Jane and Chrissie far behind. Chrissie kicks off at this point as she wants to run too but is being held back by Jane. On the way to retrieve Nathan, mother and daughter pass a confectionary shop with a large plastic ice-cream cone outside. Chrissie stops and refuses to walk any further until Jane buys her a cone. Jane refuses. Chrissie then hurls herself on the floor and starts screaming at full pitch. Jane verbally reprimands her to no avail. Just then Nathan comes back holding a Star Wars figure he took (accidentally) from the toy shop. Three or four onlookers gather at this point and start muttering and glancing over at Jane. Two stressful hours later, Jane gets the children home in one piece, where she meets Steve who had been playing golf that day. So what happens next?

Steve walks into the kitchen where both children are quietly eating their tea. Jane is preparing the adults’ dinner.

Steve: Well kids, how are you doing? Did you have a great day shopping with Mum?

Both kids smile and nod.

Steve: Ah that’s great, and did you behave yourselves for Mum?

Both nod once more.

Relieved, Steve approaches Jane from behind and nuzzles into her neck. Jane, tears of frustration in her eyes, swivels around holding the bread knife, almost catching Steve’s shirt. She apologises then runs out of the kitchen and up the stairs, leaving Steve wondering what’s just happened.

Throughout the day Jane’s feelings could be summed up as follows: overwhelmed, fear, anxiety, anger, resentment, exhaustion, despair, sadness, relief and frustration. Steve’s feelings could be summed up with one word: contentment.

Playing golf gave him the benefit of thinking time, alone time, social time, competition time and reconnection time. This was somewhat different than his wife’s experience. Jane’s time with her children had activated the following brain parts:

Her gorilla

Her full-length mirror

Her inner Sherlock

Her toothbrush

Her professor

Her thermostat

Her USB stick

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