The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Slippery Soapbox
We’ve just stepped out of the movie “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” the high-pitched Christmas song ringing in our ears and still giggling about their various pratfalls, my daughter asks, “What was your favorite part, Mom?”
Without a beat I say, “When they realized that even though home has rules and it’s not fun all the time and though you can’t eat all the candy you want and buy any toy you want, it’s still the place they want to be because that is where they are most loved.”
Yup, I really said all that.
I was still droning on by the time we reached our car. She, of course, had stopped paying attention to me back at the mall.
I had lost her at hello.
Why do I always do that? All she asked was a simple question and I sucked all the fun out of it. Why couldn’t I have just picked some random moment of inappropriate bodily function sounds and gone with that?
Lately it seems I’m using every chance I get to ram some high moral issue/significant life lesson/meaningful sermon about our values, down her throat. I get on my soapbox and begin to churn out some momentous edict and she tunes me out.
My lecturing may be because she’s at an age where more and more she has to weigh the right and wrong of things and make her own decisions, independent of me. She is older and spends more hours of the day out of the house than in, more time away from me.
She hasn’t given me reason to worry, but she’s out there. . . what if?
I’m nostalgic for those simple lessons of just a few years ago like, “share with your friends” or “remember, everyone gets a turn.”
Now everything seems weightier.
“Have a little faith,” says my Dad. And I know by ‘faith’ he means in the upbringing we're giving her, the examples we've set.
So this is my new year’s resolution: I am going to step off my soapbox. I’m going to close my eyes, take a leap of faith and hope to God to land on solid ground.
Next time she asks my answer will be, “when he farted” or “when Simon ate Theodore’s poop.”
Maybe then we'll connect.
By Tania Malik
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Without a beat I say, “When they realized that even though home has rules and it’s not fun all the time and though you can’t eat all the candy you want and buy any toy you want, it’s still the place they want to be because that is where they are most loved.”
Yup, I really said all that.
I was still droning on by the time we reached our car. She, of course, had stopped paying attention to me back at the mall.
I had lost her at hello.
Why do I always do that? All she asked was a simple question and I sucked all the fun out of it. Why couldn’t I have just picked some random moment of inappropriate bodily function sounds and gone with that?
Lately it seems I’m using every chance I get to ram some high moral issue/significant life lesson/meaningful sermon about our values, down her throat. I get on my soapbox and begin to churn out some momentous edict and she tunes me out.
My lecturing may be because she’s at an age where more and more she has to weigh the right and wrong of things and make her own decisions, independent of me. She is older and spends more hours of the day out of the house than in, more time away from me.
She hasn’t given me reason to worry, but she’s out there. . . what if?
I’m nostalgic for those simple lessons of just a few years ago like, “share with your friends” or “remember, everyone gets a turn.”
Now everything seems weightier.
“Have a little faith,” says my Dad. And I know by ‘faith’ he means in the upbringing we're giving her, the examples we've set.
So this is my new year’s resolution: I am going to step off my soapbox. I’m going to close my eyes, take a leap of faith and hope to God to land on solid ground.
Next time she asks my answer will be, “when he farted” or “when Simon ate Theodore’s poop.”
Maybe then we'll connect.
By Tania Malik
Labels: Tania Malik
Stumble This Post
