May 13, 2008
natural consequences
Tonight Wade and I had a Parenting Moment, you know the kind, where something occurs that seems totally innocuous until you stop for a moment to think about what just happened and you realize that OH MY GOD THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TEACHABLE MOMENTS except that you have NO IDEA what the lesson is so you flounder around until you land on something that seems to reinforce the Golden Rule and then you pat yourself on the back and hope like hell that you said the right thing and won’t regret this when the kids are in high school.
THAT kind of moment.
I will not bore you with the details of what happened (seriously, even as it was unfolding I was thinking how essentially stupid the whole thing was, except of course for the part about how we might do the wrong thing and scar the children FOR LIFE). I will tell you that I was in the kitchen preparing a healthy meal for my family (shut up, I was) while Wade managed The Situation, which meant multiple trips up and down the stairs to consult with me about what we were hoping the take-away was.
All that and no alcohol! Woo!
I’ve been thinking about my parents, about what they were like when my brother and I were kids. When Henry was a toddler, I told my mother-in-law that I felt like I should start every conversation with my parents by saying, “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked. “What are you sorry for?”
“Oh, you know, just EVERYTHING. Things I don’t even remember doing. I’m sure there’s something to apologize for.”
The list is endless, in fact.
What I remember the most about my parents is the way they always had our backs. My mother was always happy to pretend that she wouldn’t let me go out when my friends were doing something I didn’t want to do, or when a creepy boy asked me out. My dad was always reminding us that if we were ever at a party and no one was sober enough to drive home, we could call him and he would come get us, no questions asked.
The night before Wade and I got married, I took him up on that and had him drive Wade and the best man to the hotel where they were staying. I think he liked that.
I remember being Henry’s age and getting into trouble, and having my mother say, “When your dad gets home I will need to talk about this with him.” That always freaked me out, not because my dad was tougher than my mom but because that meant that there would be no end run around the punishment, no claiming to one parent that the other parent had said something different. I was going to be in trouble and there was going to be NO getting out of it.
They worked as a team, and they played good defense.
I have started, recently, to tell the boys that I will need to discuss things with their Daddy, and I can see the same look in their eyes that my brother and I used to get. My kids don’t get in any kind of real trouble, not yet at least (knock on wood) but Wade and I are trying to be consistent about consequences and privileges, which means we need to talk about things. What the kids don’t realize is that we’re not plotting against them, we’re just completely unable to remember what the punishment is if we haven’t talked about it. And even then, there’s a 50/50 chance I will have to call Wade at work and confer with him about what precisely it was we told the kids would happen.
Parenting is hard, you know, especially when you have no short term memory.
Tonight when Wade was going up and down the stairs, and we were hashing out the solution to The Moment, I realized how much work it must have been for my parents to present that united front. And now I think that instead of saying I’m sorry every time I call, I should just go right for “thank you.”
So thank you, Mom and Daddy. My boys thank you, too.
Now about all that money you “loaned” me over the years …
Posted by Susan @ 8:49 pm • three martini parenting, when you're here you're family
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May 13th, 2008 at 9:06 pm, bethanywd Says:
I have to say that one of the “blessings” that I always say about my husband and my “approach” (I say that loosely) to parenting is that we generally agree on what action to take (it may be the wrong one but you get my point!). A united point is for sure the way to go. United we stand; divided we fall.
May 13th, 2008 at 10:31 pm, Jenn @ Juggling Life Says:
The same page is exactly the page you want to be on–anything else just makes everything else too hard.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:56 pm, Sue Says:
I have started writing down who has lost which privileges. They totally use my lack of short term memory against me.
You two sound like a good team!
May 14th, 2008 at 7:55 am, blackbird Says:
Your parents did well with you - your boys are lucky.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:00 am, Chicken And Cheese And Then She Grounded Me Says:
[…] I backed him up - because we are a team, after all - she put her hands on her hips and huffed at […]
May 16th, 2008 at 9:12 am, A. Berkoski Says:
Thanks very much for this post. We’re having a moment like this already, and ours is 2.5. What can I say, she’s starting us early…
May 16th, 2008 at 4:42 pm, Heidi Says:
Beautiful post. And yes, I too have done much apologizing to my parents once I became a parent.