Spoiler Alert

November 2, 2015

My boy and I fought today. 

We don’t do that.

In fact, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a mother and son more in concert one with another.  As a little one, I spanked Drew maybe once or twice (yes, I believe in spanking! As my dear pastor Swad often advised, “sometimes the quickest connection to the brain is through the backside").  He rarely needed to be spanked to be thoroughly reprimanded: just a look of disappointment would make him crumple.  He is a conscientious, sensitive fellow.  The tenderness of his heart concerns me because the world is not tender. But I do have faith that the part of him that perceives others’ sadness with a well-tuned radar, that seeks to comfort when there is trouble, that gets hurt too easily, is the best part of him; and God will preserve it and not let this ridiculous world we live in rust it out and leave it bare.  I pray for that for my Drew.  He is a special one.

To balance this lovely heart, however, I’m afraid a healthy dose of impatience and selfishness made their way into his psyche.  I have no idea where that came from.  He is surrounded by mild-mannered patient genes on all sides.  Ahem.

So it was today that he became impatient with me.  I’ve spoiled my children.  Oh, they have plenty in terms of STUFF, but I’m not usually the one who buys it (shout out to the grammies of the world on that score).  My overindulgence where my children is concerned is in their time.  I try to protect it and to respect it.  I believe their time and priorities are just as important as mine.  All my love to my folks, but that is not at all how I felt as a kiddo.  I was dragged hither and yon to games, to work obligations, on errands, to do yard work across the countryside.  There was value in all that and a necessity for it at times.  But I have little recollection of ever being asked, “what do you want to do today?” That’s not a criticism.  It’s just the way it was.

I hated the lack of control I felt over my awkward, bad-hair-do, big girl, sad girl life.  And I vowed that my own kids wouldn’t have to feel that resentment.  I vowed they would have some control over their time.

As is my custom, I traffic in extremes.  I have trouble doing anything in moderation; and I have erred on the side of valuing the kids’ time maybe too much.  Don’t get me wrong:  I’m no helicopter mom; the sun doesn’t rise and set in the every breath of my precious progeny.  They are involved to the hilt in volleyball, debate, baseball, basketball—and for that I’m thrilled.  It’s their discretionary time (a phrase coined by one of my nearest and dearest) that has cornered the market over here: the FREE time I have so protected to be theirs for the taking so much so that any imposition thereon meets some resistance.

Here’s what I mean:  they have had a four day weekend, and during that time we took a little over an hour to get Drew a haircut, get Grace shoes for school (and Drew also scored a pair) and we hopped over to Ulta (a makeup mecca of sorts) next door to the shoe store.  None of these stops are at the top of anyone’s list, but they needed to happen.  Okay, okay:  the makeup store stop was up in the air, but we were right there…  Anyhoo, Drew was less than thrilled at being dragged here and there, even though he benefitted.  

I am not high maintenance when it comes to my appearance.  I feel like a bull in a China shop when it comes to putting stuff on my face.  I do the best I can with what God gave me and that isn’t saying a whole lot.  The “pop in” to makeup world was a brief grab-3-things extravaganza.  Drew, however, had reached his limit.  He is ten, he is kind and respectful.  He doesn’t have tantrums.  But the nasal tenor of complaint in minute six of our jaunt inside was beginning to wear on me.  

“But you don’t NEED that stuff.  You’d be the same whether you USED it or NOT!”  he exclaimed, befuddled by the aisles of powders, creams, perfumes, lipsticks.  It was too much.  It was just too damned much.

I went on the offense.  “Well bud, we can’t all be as naturally cute as you.  I gotta do something to help this face.”

“No you don’t!  This is ridiculous!” he wasn’t being smart.  He was bitching.  I got it.

From there, he and his sister began to fuss over who would sit shotgun on the ride home and I whipped out the closest thing to “I’ll give you something to cry about” in my arsenal:  "keep it up and you’ll both be in the back of the car.” Silence.

When we returned to the car, I launched into a mini-lecture whose greatest beneficiary was likely me, as the catharsis of saying it and fulfilling a sitcom-esque mother’s rant always does the heart a little good. “When I was your age I was dragged on every errand.  I’m so sorry I took time away from your day of blah blah blah.”  I know Grace was just waiting to turn up the tunes and put my roar to rest (she won the shotgun battle, and had been very tolerant of the whole affair, sans the throwdown for the front seat).  As I drove home, two thoughts sprang to mind:  1)  I am largely responsible for the fact that my kids are very happy, active kids who are derailed when their time is taken from them. I am to be commended and condemned.  2) I like the fact that my son (even if only as a ploy to get the hell out of the beauty store) thinks I don’t need anything slathered on my face or eyelashes to make me more presentable to the world, or that it wouldn’t change my insides.

Nonetheless, he is still in his room as I write, as his attitude had improved not upon our return home.  It may be largely my fault that he thinks his time is 100% his, but it’s also my job to fix it.  Or at least make him “think about it” (an excellent strategy, don’t you think?).  Any separation between him, ESPN, the iPad, or Netflix is punishment supreme.  Mission accomplished.

Parenting is a crapshoot in many regards.  You can be too strict, you can be too lenient.  At the end of the day, I just want two kids who love me and want to spend time with me (just not in Ulta, I guess) and who do their best to do right by everyone in their midst, including the Almighty.  That, we got.  

I suppose I should go release Drew from Shawshank…unless he has tunneled out already and is heading to meet Morgan Freeman on a beach somewhere. We shall see...