See it all before
This is a four step programme for perfect parenting. The first part of being a good parent is to do the right thing. The second step is figuring out what the right thing might be? In any given situation, if you can master these two basic skills you are well on the road to success. All you have to do then, is follow though on your decision and be consistent thereafter forever, the last two steps – persistence and consistency. This masterful, empowering programme should be adopted by all parents worldwide, from the moment the baby gulps the first lungful of air.
***
I see her pedicured toes, encased in four inch heels, as she totters up the path. Baby carrier slung on one arm, a school age child dragging on the other. I’m uncertain whether she deserves award for ‘best effort’ or a chair?
I see a father in his business suit berating his son, “why didn’t you bring it?” mystified, frustrated and already late for work.
A parent helps her child with the fluttering papers that escape from a back pack, “why did you unzip it?” The baby stroller next to her creeps backwards down the gentle incline.
A mother and son stand in line outside his classroom. Both are immaculately turned out. The mother chats to other mothers. Her son picks his nose with the dedication of a surgeon.
Another mother comes to the end of a rope of her daughter’s hair. A skillful, even braid, heavy in the palm of her hand, just before the school bell, “what do you mean you lost the elastic band?” she gasps at the six year old.
So many rhetorical questions that we all say every day wasting lungfuls of air.
And me? I sit on the bench outside the school wondering why I am no longer equipped with two changes of clothing at all times. I dither over the recovery strategy. One bemoans that her new white sports trainers are already falling apart and filthy. Another is covered in dust from head to toe having discovered the joy of scuffing dirt clouds. His new chant of ‘dusty, musty, fusty,’ begins to rankle. The last one is sodden, soaked through to the skin, having become entangled and then enraptured with a sprinkler on the walk to school.
All perfectly seamless really, in all our different ways.
I see someone’s Grandpa leaning against the wall, on substitute parent duty. He watches the children. He watches his lad. As the bell clangs and children dive into air conditioned classes, he moves off, wipes his brow with a white handkerchief and smiles, as well he might.
Stumble it!
May 20th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I am guilty of the “retorical question”.
I must be..I will stub my toe or drop something and Junior will ask “Whad oo do mommy?” I will answer and he says “Why’d oo do dat for?” I figure he is immitating me. However, I too think the unexpected and unplanned for is “normal”. I can not get bentout of shape over the things you talked about. It just seems too “normal” around here too.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:46 am
I am constantly asking, “Why did you DO THAT?”
And there is never really an answer. These, I suspect, are rhetorical. My son simply shrugs his shoulders and mutters, “I don’t know.”
And he doesn’t. There is no reason. it’s just a lack of impulse control, something we’ve combatted for years. Whether it’s pulling a fire alarm or opening and shutting the door thirty times or having to do something before he is supposed to be leaving for the bus, he just cannot control. I suspect that if a sprinkler went off on our way to school (rare in these parts) he’d be the first to jump in it!
May 20th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Guilty over here, too. Thanks for the reminder to limit that.
Perfect ‘picture’ of the schoolyard. I could see it.
Happy Tuesday, Maddy!
May 20th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I am more likely to say “OK, so do you understand why Mommy says not to do that?” If I were my kids, I’d find me insufferable.
I gave up looking decent so long ago, and I just let the kids do their thing, also. My girl is 7, and in a phase of “touch not the hair,” so she’s responsible for brushing it, and it hangs in butt-length blonde chaos, somebody’s drug-adled macrame project, as a result. The boys choose their own clothes, with predictably comfortable and fashionless results. I figure that getting extra points for neatness is over for me.
I get annoyed because my thoughtless husband cleans out the car. In the “wayback” of the mommymobile are spare clothes, wipes, jackets, sand buckets, plastic grocery bags, ziplocs (otherwise known as “toxic waste containment”), juice boxes, bottled water, and most of the other tools of the mommy trade. Finding that one needs any of these things, and that Daddy has removed them, brings on attacks of potty mouth that would make sailors blush.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Grandparents do have it the easiest unless they are on permanent substitute parent duty. I have a more than a few years to go before grandparenthood hits–that is if it ever does. Great post with wonderful observations.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
It’s hard to leave those rhetorical questions behind, isn’t it? But we all must. Children have to be children, not little adults. When she was small, L picked out her own clothes, and her teachers knew it. I have a friend with twins in second grade, and you can tell that they pick their clothes. So eclectic. Isn’t that what we want to encourage??
May 20th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Bit of poetry in the dust, and the sprinkler.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
The structure of your writing is gorgeous (look how you’ve got me reading a slew of your posts here tonight, in one sitting!); the wry opening paragraph here, the perfect list of real-life moments, capped off by the grandpa escaping…it all adds up to poignancy.