I was waiting for Oldest to take his driving test at the DMV the other day when I heard a mother asking her child to please behave. Actually, what she said was, “JERMAINE! YOU STOP THAT AND GET YOUR SKINNY BUTT OVER HERE…NOW!” Then a funny thing happened, Jermaine stopped it and got his skinny butt over to his mother. Well! That was something new. I started to ask her her secret, but when I saw how she was dealing with Jermaine I thought it best to study the situation empirically.
I was fascinated that, even though the area around her was teaming with people, the mother had no problem yelling at the top of her lungs at her child. Don’t get me wrong, I regularly yell at the top of my lungs at my children, I just try to do it when there are no witnesses. My kids are well aware of this therefore generally save their worst for when there is an audience.
I couldn’t get Jermaine and his mother out of my mind for the rest of the day. I had been told by countless books, therapists, classes, forums and lectures that this was not the way to handle children, and of course I agreed! It seemed like such a precarious balance. The slightest infraction on my part could send them careening off into drugs or religious zealotry. I have horrible visions of Youngest’s picture splashed across the newspaper, him in a turban with a thuggish expression on his face having done some heinous deed and showing no remorse whatsoever. It was fairly easy to imagine this as, except for the turban, this was the way he looked most days.
Not to say that if one wears a turban one is not well-behaved. In fact, possibly quite the reverse! According to Rosee and Analeticia the way we “white” people raise our children is very confusing. As they tell it, in their culture there is no, “oh darling please stop. I mean it. Okay I really mean it! I am going to count to three…one, two…two and a haaaaalf…that is IT! There is going to be real trouble in one second…” No, none of that. Rosee told of being made to kneel on rice when she misbehaved. Analeticia said hers was dried beans, but the point was the same. Obviously, I find that shocking and abusive! Not to mention it is super messy and no one listened to my orders to kneel anyway.
The problem with all this restraint is at some point one blows and does something worse than demanding rice and bean kneeling. And if you think your kids will ever forget those moments you are sadly mistaken.
One long-suffering friend of mine finally had it, took the just-prepared snack of freshly-peeled carrots and threw them at her girls screaming, “Fine! Make your own damn snack then!” You can bet every time she serves them freshly-peeled carrots the girls never fail to wave them in front of her face and say, “remind you of something mommy?”
Oldest brings up an unpleasant misunderstanding he and I had quite a number of years ago at least once a week. “Remember that time you slapped me in the face when I had pneumonia?” or, “That reminds me of the time you slapped me in the face when I pneumonia.” and on occasion, “Was that before or after the time you slapped me in the face when I had pneumonia?” Yes, in a court of law, I guess I did, technically, slap him in the face when he had pneumonia, but believe you me that is not the whole story. It just takes too long to tell, and I really don’t think this is the time or the place…
