The crackdown

Is it me?

Every mother on the planet must ask that question at least once a week. A day? In my case, an hour. I have become the queen of second guessing myself. Am I being too strict? Too permissive? What's going on here?

My children have simultaneously found their wings. The baby doesn't want to put on her jacket. She wants to take off her diaper and run around. She adamantly refuses to let me put her hair up in the morning. The middle child cannot be told anything without descending into a puddle of tears and anguish. My son just completely tunes me out.

To make matters worse, my students are doing the same.

Parenting and teaching are painfully humbling experiences.

We're not taking it sitting down, though. My husband and I have put our heads together and we have come up with a battle plan. We have armed ourselves with stickers, charts, and all kinds of incentives and disincentives to encourage the behaviors we want to encourage and to squash the ones that are getting on my nerves.

Today, I finally had a breakthrough: actions speak louder than words. Yes, yes, I know, this is elementary stuff, an adage as old as the hills. But, I finally discovered exactly what it meant. My son forgot his lunch at home, despite being reminded twice to put it in his backpack. When I got the call from school this morning, I shrugged and said, Give him cereal. The old me would have run myself ragged delivering it to the school. The new me has a clue.

This afternoon, my baby refused to put on her jacket. Again, I shrugged and said okay, you'll go without. The moment we stepped outside, she asked for her puffy yellow coat. The old Mommy would have immediately bundled her up shrilly pointing out that she wouldn't be cold had she not been so stubborn. The smarter version of me smiled knowingly and merely sympathized. Yes, it is cold, but we're almost to the car, dear.

This evening, my son wanted dessert. Put your plate in the sink and put on your pyjamas, and I'll give you some banana bread! I perkily agreed.

Twenty minutes later I found him fully dressed in his room, reading a comic book. I guess you didn't want that dessert, I concluded.

"I do! I do!" He insisted, getting into his pyjamas in record time.

Well, you would have put your plate in the sink and put on your pyjamas when I asked you to, if you had really wanted it. It's too late now. My son was shocked, angry, appalled, and incredulous that I could do such a thing. And he let me know it. For the first time in months I smiled in the face of such an onslaught of emotion.

You know, I told him, usually, I would yell and scream back at you for being rude and disrespectful, but it always made me feel rotten later. I don't want to feel bad because you didn't follow instructions, I'd rather feel okay, and let you feel bad about it.

I asked him to brush his teeth and go to bed, which, of course, he didn't do. But I didn't let it turn me into the shrieking shrew tonight. I nodded my tacit assent. Fine, I'll let your father know when he gets home. And I walked away.

To you great moms out there, rolling your eyes at my slow uptake, I must inform you that this was a huge step for me. Like a lifelong smoker going cold-turkey, an alcoholic pouring the beer down the drain, a chronic overeater saying no to pie.

I'm the law school widow and I'm a shriek-aholic. I'm addicted to confrontation.

But today I walked away from a useless battle.

I don't know if I'll be able to keep up this zen-like pacifism. I'm not even sure it will do much to change any behaviors, although, I suspect it already has. My Sarah Heartburn got into her jammies in a jiffy, put her dishes in the sink, and sat patiently waiting for banana bread.

And she doesn't even like bananas.

There's hope for us yet.