Even before Julie posted about the Balloon Boy debacle, I’d been thinking about obedience. Especially at bedtime, I go into Full Drill Sergeant Mom Mode. I bark orders and cannot tolerate anything short of instant acquiescence.
And I hate that. I hate the atmosphere that it creates. And I hate the thought that I am scaring my children into submission. Because not to be melodramatic, but isn’t this how holocausts and genocide begin? With blind obedience? With compliance motivated by fear? From what I’ve read about the Heene family, it sure sounds like little Falcon had reason to dread his father’s wrath.
So no, I don’t want to be that kind of parent. Nor do I think I am. I do still want my kids to listen, to follow rules, to be courteous to me and to others. I also want them to be independent in thought and in deed. Sometimes it’s hard to see where the boundary is. (Stop moving, boundary.)
A week or so ago, Jo was whining about doing her homework. It wasn’t due the next day so she didn’t really have to do it right then and there. But her attitude was killing me. I insisted that she complete the assignment. Then I told her that if she had asked politely whether she could do her assignment another time, I would have agreed.
When it’s not, sayjustforexample, bedtime, I explain to my children that when their dad and I make (and enforce) rules, we aren’t in fact trying to antagonize our children. We are trying to keep them safe and healthy. We are trying to help them be respectful and respected. We are trying to help them do their best, no matter who is, or isn’t, watching.
Come back in about 20 years to find out how we did.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I think–right now–that I have a favorite child. I love Jo utterly; this summer’s events brought that home like nothing else could have. She’s funny and sweet and affectionate and generally well behaved. I love to spend time with her and am so proud of everything she can do (and wants to do and tries to do).
But Opie, at least lately? It’s like he’s made out of candy and Champagne and ice cream all rolled into one. Even when he’s being a typical 3-year-old pain in the butt I can’t stop thinking about how much I adore him. I don’t know if it’s a mother-son thing, or a youngest child/baby lust thing, or something else entirely. He’s smaller, snugglier, and, well, just kind of cuter than his sophisticatedly 6-year-old sister. He still makes hilarious, nonsensical pronouncements (the other day he reported that he’d had tacos for lunch and they made “all the babies in my tummy really sick.” Duly noted, then, no more tacos, and also, I’ll alert the media). I can still carry him around on my hip and at bedtime, he says “Mommy, dance me a wittle” and rests his head on my shoulder.
Anyway, I defy you not to fall for a guy like this (10 seconds):
Please tell me I am not crazy. Well, except for letting my child out in public wearing the jetfighter print shorts with the striped polo and bright red boots. Or for letting him use the patio table (where we, like, eat and stuff) as his stage. Okay fine.
And yes–pretty much true. But let’s put that aside for a moment and talk about the fact that Kimberlyloves my blog. So, happy thoughts! Thank you, Kimberly.
And now I get to say which blogs I love. Which seven blogs I love, which as you can imagine is not really possible. Seventy-seven, I could do.
So here are the most recent additions to my reader, because if they’ve earned a spot there then I must love them. (And if you’re not listed, that just means I already loved you.)
Dirt & Noise. A few good rants about Sarah Palin and I was sold.
Total Mom Haircut. She taught Martha Stewart a thing or two about blogging.
The Wink. I know, everyone already knows about Amanda, apparently except me.
And my 7th spot (since I always have to find a way to cheat on every meme) goes to all the mom bloggers participating in the Donors Choose 2008 Blogger Challenge. Thanks for supporting such a great cause!
Fine print:
You can put the award picture on your blog.
Link to the person who awarded you.
Nominate at least seven other blogs that you love.
I grew up in a smallish college town (one that’s since grown considerably). There wasn’t much to do, of an evening, unless you were possessed of a fake ID and a really short skirt. So once we’d seen whatever movie there was to see we would always end up at a Roy Rogers downtown. It was on one of the main drags, the street that separated town from gown. We’d get a couple of orders of fries and sit in a booth up front, next to the huge plate glass windows that overlooked this street and the campus on the other side of it. I can’t remember ever seeing anything of interest, except maybe the one time our state representative was at the fixin’s bar and it turns out he wasn’t a hair over 5 feet tall.
And that was inside the restaurant. Outside, even though everyone in our little world passed by at some point, still nothing ever happened, or at least that’s how it feels when you are 16, right? Across the avenue, on the campus side, there was a low stone wall that ran along the sidewalk. As Roy’s was our preferred hangout, The Wall was where you could always find the kids from our district’s “alternative” high school, the one for kids too bored or stoned or smart or unconventional or disruptive to attend the regular program. Never, of course, the twain would meet; we thought they were weird and they thought we were bourgeois and you know how those high school rules are, about who you can associate with and who you most certainly cannot.
If you’re lucky or wiser than most you realize how foolish this at the time or shortly after. Of course it took me closer to 15 years, mostly because I stopped thinking about high school within minutes of moving that tassel on my mortarboard. Then one night when Jo was a baby I was on a message board, doing that new-mom thing. Suddenly another mother and I realized that we’d grown up in the same place at the same time, but we’d never met because she was a Wall person and I wasn’t, and neither of us would’ve ever considered crossing the street to meet the other.
And I sort of thought by writing this I’d now arrive at a neat conclusion about how motherhood brings unlikely people together (and so does the Internets). Which I do think is true. But mostly I just felt like telling the story about the street and how it looked from my side then and how different it looks now. Not nearly so wide.
This is going to make me sound like a dopey job interviewee who answers “I work too hard” to the question “what is your biggest flaw?” but sometimes I think I am too empathetic for my own good. I am so readily able to see the other side of an argument that I can’t bring myself to take a strong position of my own. As soon as I begin to form an opinion I am already thinking of all the ways it could be rebutted and countered. I am thinking of a person I know or a blog I read and how “so-and-so would say … “
Kristen asked the other day about blogs that help us see the silver lining. Understanding more about the challenges that other families face every day–illness, infertility, infidelity, poverty, injustice–has been one of the most moving, amazing, unexpected benefits to me of spending time in Blogsylvania (thanks Jenny for that term). The flip side is that I’m sensitive, to a wishy-washy, mushy-middle fault, to the way others experience tough issues.
I sometimes wish my blog could be more opinionated and argumentative. I’m sure it would be more fun to read that way. But I’d be worried about hurting people’s feelings, and–truth be told–about upsetting people I care about. It just wouldn’t be me. So I’m trying to be okay with that.
