I’m a good parent. That means that when my kids are being completely unreasonable and losing their minds about how their soccer socks weren’t washed the last time I did laundry and they don’t have any blue socks left and blue is their favorite color and they CANNOT go to school without their blue socks, oh, and, also, they don’t remember where they put their shoes so now they’re going to spend the next half hour looking but not really looking, because they have their nose stuck in a book while they’re walking up the stairs, which means they’re most likely going to trip and fall, and there will be a bit of blood and they’ll be dying (in their minds, at least), there are some things I’d like to say.
Kids evoke some of the most unreasonable responses in their parents, because they’re illogical little human beings. But because I’m a good parent, I don’t usually say any of these things out loud. I keep them safe and sound in my own mind. But parents, you know, we need a place for these confessions to go every once in a while, so I’m going to take them for a spin today. Here’s what I’d say to my kids if I could.
“Because you haven’t been alive as long as I have, I think you’re completely unreasonable.”
No, the world isn’t going to end because you accidentally left that Pokemon card in your Sunday school class. In fact, you’re probably not even going to miss it in the grand scheme of things, since you have 999 more.
Now. What to do with all the others…
“You’re ridiculous.”
We’re really picky about the way we say things in our house. Because we don’t want kids to take on the identity of “ridiculous,” we say “You’re acting ridiculous.” It seems like a small thing, but it’s actually huge in a kid’s mind.
Still, there are times I’d like them to know that they are, in fact, ridiculous. This is usually when my kids are arguing over whether or not we’re going the wrong way to the zoo even though they have no sense of direction whatsoever. At least the older boys are weathered enough to understand that they can look at the landmarks and know, about 50 percent of the time, whether we’re headed in the right direction. But those 4-year-old twins will fight us to the word-death, screaming and hollering about how they want to go to the zoo, and we’re never going to get to the zoo, because we’re going in the wrong direction and they know everything. I don’t much like to be told by a kid who’s been alive for all of four years that I need to turn around and go the other direction or that I should go when the light in front of me is red or that I need to “beat all the other cars” when we’re on the highway.
“You don’t know anything.”
This phrase flits through my head when my 4-year-old twins are telling me I’m doing the wrong part of my workout routine, even though I’m busting my rear to get ahead, and it’s all the worse, because I don’t even have the extra breath to tell them that they’re the ones who are wrong (because I like falling into the black holes of arguing with a 4-year-old). But my mental space is filled with all sorts of words. Sometimes, if I can manage enough air to say anything, I’ll huff out something sarcastic, like, “Oh, look at that. She’s doing the same exercise I was doing FIVE SECONDS AGO. I guess I know what I’m doing after all.” But usually not. Those workouts are hard core. And, also, I get winded standing up.
“I’m the worst parent ever? Yeah, well, no one in this house is winning any awards for best kid ever, either.”
Whenever we say that the boys can’t do something (usually going outside to play with their friends, who keep ringing our doorbell during dinner), we’re the worst parents ever. When we tell them they have to take a bath and wash behind their ears, we’re the worst parents ever. When we won’t buy them another pack of Pokemon cards, we’re the worst parents ever.
When we don’t let them watch that show a friend was talking about (because we don’t even have a TV), when we don’t let them play outside in the mud after it’s been raining all day, when we don’t let them have a little more technology time because dang it if I’m not going to be a parent of a techno-head, when we don’t buy them an iPhone like all the other third graders have now, when we won’t let them stay home from school because they cut their toe yesterday, when we make them do their chores, we’re the worst parents ever.
And every time I hear it, I want to tell them the phrase above. But usually I just smile to myself, knowing this will soon pass and they’ll be climbing into my lap, even though they’re 9, for a bedtime story.
“We go on date nights so we don’t have to put you to bed.”
This is usually reserved for the nights when my kids incredulously say, “Didn’t you just go on a date night with Daddy?”
We don’t get date nights all that often, but when we do, we’ll live it up until about 10:30 p.m., when we start falling asleep in the middle of our sentences. We get a date night about once every month, but the kids always act like we just went out on one, mostly because kids have zero sense of time and think that so much longer has passed than the amount of time that has actually passed (except when their technology time timer goes off. Then it’s always, “What? It’s already over?”).
Well, little do they know that we go out on date nights because we love each other, but we mostly go out on them to get a break from the kids.
“If you don’t get back in your bed, I’m going to strap you down in it.”
My kids are terrible at staying in bed. On the nights that actually pass without someone coming to knock on our door for one more kiss or to tell us they can’t find their favorite stuffed animal and can’t sleep without it or that their poop had some orange pieces in it and should they be worried, we wonder if maybe something is wrong.
We have this boundary that says our boys can only come knock on our door after lights out if it’s an emergency, but kids have a really messed up sense of what an emergency is. Case in point: Last night the 9-year-old, who is a brilliant kid most of the time, came to tell us about this Pokemon trade he made today. Not an emergency. The 5-year-old came to our room to tell us that his leg had fallen off. He used both of them to walk to our room. The 6-year-old came to our room to let us know that his baby brother was now asleep in the crib. Not an emergency.
One of these days, I know they won’t even want to tell us goodnight, so I’m trying to enjoy this get-out-of-bed-a-thousand-times while it lasts.
“Go put something else on.”
This would be reserved for the days when my boys wear sweat pants, which is pretty much every day.
My kids have a whole closet full of nice clothes they don’t wear. I know. I bought them. I took them all to the store and braved walking around that store with three kids, and they picked out their first day of school outfit, which they wore on the first day and never again. Now they only choose sweat pants and look mostly like miniature hobos.
I mean, I’m not really one to talk, but still.
Husband took the 9-year-old to a video shoot recently, and the 9-year-old came down the stairs wearing horizontal stripes with plaid shorts, and we got to have a fun conversation about the appropriate dress code for meeting with clients. We got a little mileage out of his good clothes that day.
“Maybe use your brain, genius.”
I think this every time my twins are putting their shoes on the wrong feet. It sounds terrible to say it like that, but it boils down to this: They can figure out how to climb a wall and pick a lock and do this elaborate break-in routine to get into a locked and boarded room so they can take the gasoline can and pour it all over themselves and the backyard, but they can’t figure out which shoe goes on which foot.
Confounding.
Like I said, I never say any of these things out loud, but if my kids could see into my brain during a moment like the ones above, they would surely agree that I’m the best parent ever.
My restraint muscle gets a great workout with all these boys. Sadly, it’s about the only one.
