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The Rude Science of Experimental Parenting
By Tiffany Lewis
A
while back, I was telling a former college roommate about
my son’s unusual habit of going to bed with random objects.
Each night he falls asleep clutching the
beloved item of the day. Yesterday it was my guitar
capo and a ruler. In the past he has requested to sleep
with the tape measure, the alarm clock, the camera, the
vacuum hose, the tongs, a birthday candle, my credit cards,
the dustpan and the broom. (I drew the line at the broom.)
There is often more debris in his bed than there is boy.
After
listening to me, my friend observed, “That sounds familiar.
Remember your own bed in college?” Until that moment I’d
forgotten, but suddenly the memory came flooding back.
My entire semester lived on my bed. Books, papers, notes,
and binders were stacked a foot high along the wall. There
was a 6-inch-wide swath of mattress reserved on the edge,
and that is where I perched for bedtime. I had to sleep
on my side to fit.
Looking
back, I can’t remember why I didn’t just clear off the books
at bedtime. Perhaps I thought the knowledge from those scattered
pages would seep into my brain while I slept. Maybe I felt
comfort in knowing that if I wanted to read Dante at 3 a.m., he was right there, digging into my shoulder blades.
Whatever
the reason, this revived memory only strengthened my argument
for Reason #452 on why it’s hard to be a parent.
Like it or not, our children are going
to be just like us.
And in all the wrong ways.
We
thrill when we spot for the first time Daddy’s adorable
blue eyes and our own cute chin. We cringe when we recognize
that adorable temper and exasperating inability to finish
projects.
“You
need to be more patient,” I’ve said to my son more than
once, impatiently.
“Such a daredevil!” I say to my 1-year-old, conveniently
forgetting that when I was little I ate poisonous mushrooms
and dove head-first off the bunk
bed.
If
my children turn out to be slobs, I have no one to blame
but myself and the perpetual pile of papers on my desk.
If my kids request ice cream for dinner, it’s because they
watched me eat pie for breakfast. Sometimes I wish my kids
would run more and read less, but what can I expect when
I’m glued to the couch all afternoon reading Pride and
Prejudice?
My
older son has been terrified of swimming from the first
time his toes touched water. The other day my husband tried
to shake free of Jackson’s vice-like grip long enough to
teach him how to kick his legs. Our son screamed in agony.
With a sigh, my husband gave up.
“Oh,
Jackson,” he said, “you’re just too much
like your daddy.”
We
want so much for our children to be better than we are,
to rise above our imperfections and be, well, perfect. Isn’t
each generation supposed to come new and improved, like
the latest upgraded minivan? When do they transcend to that
higher plane?
Because
all I see standing before me is a mini-me, telling his little
brother, “Addison, don’t you dare!” I can’t imagine
where he learned that phrase.
As
parents, we want to put our best foot forward. But sometimes it
takes a lot of two-stepping just to find that best foot. Raising
kids and conquering each phase of development is a rude science
of experimental parenting. We seem to learn most often through
our own gross errors. I had to spank, shout, nag, and bribe my
way through the biting phase, only to realize that the best way
to handle it was to ignore it. When the pushing phase came along,
I tried to ignore it, and had all-out mutiny. And the surefire
methods for one child never work for the next.
Sometimes
parenting resembles a wild game of pin-the-obedience on the toddler.
We scramble around blindfolded searching for the right method,
while our children our rally at our heels, mimicking our every
faulty move.
But
that doesn’t mean I’ve given up trying to improve my kids.
Both of my children have inherited my hopeless sweet tooth.
Like a dutiful parent, I went out early week and bought
Easter candy, then put it in a convenient location where
I could snack on it all week long. On Friday I surveyed
the depleted inventory and decided my kids were going to
grow up more nutrition-minded than their mother. This (at
least for them) was going to be a candy-free Easter.
The
next morning, after the health-conscious Easter bunny arrived,
my older son ran around collecting plastic eggs. With great
gusto he opened the first egg to reveal … a little shriveled
prune. Now, to be fair, my kids really like dried fruit,
so he was mildly excited. He quickly ate it and turned to
the next egg, out of which spilled a handful of raisins.
He continued to open the eggs: prunes, raisins, more raisins,
more prunes. By this time a look of mild confusion crossed
his face. He’s not even 3, but I could sense his little
mind knew Easter bunnies weren’t supposed to bring
dried fruit: they were supposed to bring jelly beans and
chocolate eggs and sugar-coated marshmallows.
With
a belly full of sugar-free fare, he looked around in desperation.
“More eggs?” he asked hopefully. I realized that my hypocritical
attempt at improvement had failed, especially when he caught
me later eating a handful of jelly beans — his jelly beans.
If
I had to measure my parenting in days, or even weeks, I’d
consign myself to failure. I have to think long term. All
I can do is try to improve myself, little by little, so
that I can be a better example and role model. Because as
someone pointed out recently, parenting is as much about
grooming grown-ups as it is about raising good children.
In the process, we’re raising ourselves. And maybe in the
end our children teach us more than we’ll ever teach them.
Which is really okay. My son can have the capo and the
ruler. Tonight, I’m sleeping with the raisins.
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