G is sitting on his bed in his pajamas, holding the National Geographic Explorer snowmobile in one hand and the matchbox pizza delivery van in the other, banging them gently together with a look of total absorption.“They are fighting, mommy,” he says solemnly, mid-bang.
“Oh, no,” I say, in my best learning-opportunity voice. “How sad for them. Let’s think about what they might say to each other if they, um, used their words.”
I take on the persona of the snowmobile. “Please don’t hit me, pizza delivery van,” I say. “It makes me so sad. I just want to be your friend.”
“I’m sorry, snowmobile.” (I say, as the pizza delivery van). “I was feeling angry, but I don’t want to hurt you. Let’s be friends.”
“See, honey,” I say, brightly. “They are talking it out.”
He smiles at me fondly, benevolently, as if to forgive the special kind of drugs I must be taking at the moment.
“That’s very nice, mommy,” he says. “But now they are fighting again.”
Whack. I’m clearly going to have to work on my tone.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with Mme. Marron after another tough day wrangling G away from the garderie. Lying on the floor, I believe, was involved, along with a refusal to put on a jacket. Sandrine, his teacher, knelt down beside him and in a firm, even voice, said, “G, you must get up now and put on your jacket immediately. Maman is very tired and it is very naughty not to help her.” And lo, immediatement, he got up, the jacket was on, and we were out the door.
“Why does this never work for me?” I wondered.
“Well,” said Mme. Marron, “it’s because he senses that deep down you don’t really care whether he puts the jacket on or not.”
And I don’t, really. I like to believe that my parenting philosophy is invested in general principles, but that’s only true if I admit that principle number one is “How does this affect my peace of my mind and the probability that I will either a) drink an entire cup of tea while it is still warm, or b) have access to ten minutes of uninterrupted reading today?” If a or b look available over the course of a given afternoon, I’m likely not to be too pressed. G is already much too aware of this highly personal ratio to mommy’s displeasure (heaven forbid he had been whacking me with one of the toy cars). Whenever it looks like things are going south for him in the trouble department, his first question is “Are you happy, mommy?” And then he brings me a magazine. So I guess it’s all working out in its own way.
We’ll just have to put B in charge of the teakettle.*
*note: for those of you who maintain any interest in the saga of the coffeepot, last week I walked into Darty on a whim and they actually had the verseuse for my coffeepot in stock. I was able to locate, purchase, and walk out with my new coffee carafe in under fifteen minutes and for less than twenty euros. We’ll see how long the feeling of triumph lasts.
2 comments:
Congratulations on the carafe.
You hit a nerve with this description of a trade off between your minimal comfort and discipline. I do as you do: I do not particularly care if my kid is wearing a jacket, and I cannot pretend to. I believe, moreover, the very half-heartedness of my attempt to make her put on a jacket is teaching her something about the way to walk though the world, treating indifferent matters indifferently. And finally I think it's importantt for her to see me reading as much as possible, even if that means I am letting small disciplinary matters go.
However, something in the back of my mind tells me that if I really had her jumping at my orders, we'd all have a lot more time to read, relax, drink tea, and play games.
I am conflicted.
oh, me too.
But my only other experience with discipline of any kind -- and I know you know this scenario, too -- has been in a classroom, and I fell into the same kind of pattern. As long as we got to have interesting conversations about books, and no one crossed my personal bugaboos -- insulting other students, plagiarism (or, when I taught elementary school, insulting other students, hitting) -- I couldn't exercise too much real emotion about deadlines or other structures. Even though I believe that structure is a good thing in general, and am pretty structured about my own behavior. With teaching, I just figured that some other professor to whom discipline and rigor came more naturally would balance things out.
With parenting, I'm not so sure. But the under-eight set rats out disingenuity so much faster than any other, I don't even think it would work if I tried to do it differently...
thanks for the props on the carafe. We are reveling daily in fresh coffee (even if it still isn't making up for the vampire B's twice-nightly feedings).
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