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.
Monday, April 07, 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 had sucked all the fun out of it. Why couldn’t I have just picked some random moment of inappropriate bodily function sounds, of which there were plenty, and gone with that?
Lately, it seems that 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 then 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 consequently spends more hours of the day out of the house than in, more time away from me hovering over her shoulder than before. 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 you’re giving her, the examples you’ve set… have faith in your child.
So this is my new year’s resolution. I am going to step off my soap box for now. I’m going to close my eyes, take a leap of faith and hope to God to land on solid ground.
Next time when she asks my answer will be, “When he farted” or “When Simon ate Theodore’s poop.”
Yup, he really did that.
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 had sucked all the fun out of it. Why couldn’t I have just picked some random moment of inappropriate bodily function sounds, of which there were plenty, and gone with that?
Lately, it seems that 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 then 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 consequently spends more hours of the day out of the house than in, more time away from me hovering over her shoulder than before. 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 you’re giving her, the examples you’ve set… have faith in your child.
So this is my new year’s resolution. I am going to step off my soap box for now. I’m going to close my eyes, take a leap of faith and hope to God to land on solid ground.
Next time when she asks my answer will be, “When he farted” or “When Simon ate Theodore’s poop.”
Yup, he really did that.
By Tania Malik
Labels: Tania Mali
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SO TRUE!! Very well written blog. I can painfully relate. It is so hard to walk that line with kids that age. You want them to feel like they can talk to you about anything. They are old enough to hear the truth and make their own choices. We need to teach them by example and let them make those choices themselves. It sounds so simple but it is not! I have to bite my tongue not to make everything into a lesson. Good luck! That said, it was pretty funny when he ate the poop.
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