I may not want my kids to obey me. I do want them to listen to me. I want to be at least one of the inputs they consider before taking action. Indeed, the reason I don’t want them to obey me is that I think it will lead to an all-or-nothing situation in which one day they just have to block me out altogether in order to hear the other inputs and make their own minds up.
Problem is, there are cases when I want to be the only input. For example when they are wondering what would happen if they put their hand into a flame.
Take, for example, Battle walking along a planter in the yard. We have a flimsy fence in front of a two and a half foot drop. I was asking him not to stand there because of the risk of falling.
“Battle, please don’t stand there. You might fall.”
He looked at me and didn’t move.
“Battle, I said, please move.”
He looked at me skeptically.
“Battle, get down from there right now!”
He worked on perfecting his most mischievous, charming, infuriating smile. Sometimes I can’t help myself from laughing when I see that smile. Today, I had the thought: why not let him learn the hard way? One fall will save me a lot of breath...He probably wouldn’t get hurt too bad. Then I saw a vivid scene of the bloody nose he had a couple of days prior.
“Battle, ONE, TWO...”
He stepped down, slowly. He obeyed, sort of. I don’t want obedience. Except when I do. And if I don’t understand when I do and make it clear, then I’m going to get the worst of the chaotic and the totalitarian worlds.
The thing is there are like 60 things per hour you have to tell a two year old to do or not to do. It’s annoying to me and I am sure to them. Maybe it’s better to get comfortable with the school of hard knocks now. Warn them and then let them see I was right...
For example, after three days of fighting about the little child proof things on the corners of their beds, I just took them off. They are going to have to learn the hard way not to fall on the corners of their bed, of the perils of jumping on the bed. We had one bloody nose already. We all survived it.
I think on the safety things, the best course of action is to warn them and then let them make their own mistakes, let them fall. Unless the situation is life threatening. For some reason, for example, they take the danger of cars very very seriously. I guess because I do.
So what is the meaning of protectiveness? It can be loving. It can also be lack of confidence. It can be fearfulness. And that mixture is toxic for love. So beware of safety as the justification for demanding obedience.
The other reason for demanding obedience is parental irritation. Take putting feet on the table. I don’t want them to do it. Not because it will hurt them, but because I find it irritating. What do I do then? “Margaret, please take your feet off the table.” “Margaret, if you don’t take your feet off the table, I’m going to give you a time out.” Then if she doesn’t I turn the chair around. That’s more a case of pure obedience. You can’t put your feet on the table because I find it annoying. I think if the end of the sentence were “and I’m bigger so I get to call the shots,” then it would be problematic. But there are plenty of things I find irritating that I do put up with. Battle running the vacuum cleaner all the time, for example.
The no feet on the table thing is a rule. There are rules that Andy and I have set that we just don’t change on. Letting them put feet on the table sometimes but not others would just be annoying. I guess letting them set some of the household rules sooner than later is one way to prevent them from being meaningless.
The meaning of compromising to avoid mutual irritation--the meaning of a few rules--is joyous cohabitation. Teaching the kids that their desires matter and that my desires matter is important. But to make that work I need to demonstrate to them that I’m bending too, as is Andy.
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