It is a sunny Sunday afternoon. My daughter and her friend are eating ice cream and happily swinging in the backyard. The sprinkler is on for running through and rinsing off sticky ice cream hands. I am on the deck with a cool drink, a good book and my laptop. For this brief moment, everything is good. I can’t help but think that this is a civilized way to parent.
Now if I could only keep it this way…
My kid keeps “outing” me. Any parent knows it is damn near impossible to have family secrets actually kept secret once you have kids and I knew this broadcast system would eventually kick in after our daughter was born, but jeepers, is nothing sacred anymore?
As our daughter was chatting with a friend over cheese and crackers at the kitchen table, talk turned to chores and helping around the house. Her friend’s mom had a cleaning lady come in occasionally and she wondered if I did, too.
“Do you clean your house?” she asked me. Before I could answer, my daughter did the honours for me:
“Not really.”
Thanks.
At school a few weeks ago, another mom needed to contact me and tracked down my daughter.
“Hey hon, what is your phone number?”
“How should I know?” my daughter shrugged. Great. Now everyone at school knows how delinquent I am in street-proofing our kid. Thanks, honey!
I suppose growing a thicker skin and increasing my comfort level with “sharing” is just something I have to accept. Ahh…the glorious things that motherhood brings!
Most women rue the day they recognize their mothers’ traits in themselves, but what about the day you realize your daughter is like you?
I sat down at the computer the other day grumbling about my daughter’s habit of disagreeing with me simply for the sake of disagreeing. As I hammered away at my Inbox, deleting email after email without even opening the messages, an uneasy feeling came over me. I noticed my purposeful and stubborn refusal to read these emails was simply because I did not want to succumb to the obligation to read them. Never mind that these were all messages I had requested. The situation suddenly felt unnervingly similar to my daughter’s earlier reactions. It made me stop and think:
Could this be a behavior she picked up from me?
I shook my head with irritation. I could not possibly agree with a notion like that.
They say it is hard to be a kid at Christmas, but I think it is pretty hard to be a parent, too. The children may have to be on their best behaviour for Santa, but us grown-ups have to set a good example.
It is hard to encourage moderation when it comes to eating chocolates and Christmas cookies when all you want to do is wolf them down yourself. The stress of it is pushing me to dishonesty. When I sat down to eat my box of Toffifee and my daughter asked, “Do I like those?” my answer was “No.” I can’t seem to find time to make cookies, but I sure can find time to eat them. Every time my daughter’s back is turned, that is.
Thank goodness Santa does not keep a naughty list of parents, I just can’t handle the pressure to be good for one more person.
