Psyches and Cement

I just read another mom's blog. It was well-written and I enjoyed it, but as she editorialized her struggle to not be "that mom" and yell at her kids against her angst over teaching them how to deal with anger, I was mostly just left with the question "So when did we all start thinking of our children as quick-drying cement?" One small, inadvertent impression and 5 minutes later, it's indelibly become a part of our child's psyche forever? Who can live with that kind of pressure? I think back to the early days of my first child and remember agonizing over whether to Ferberize her, when to wean, if she should have a pacifier, when to take said pacifier, etc...I thought my head would explode as I envisioned every decision rippling into the future, branching out into a thousand different psychological scars that she would one day discuss with her therapist. And one day as I looked at our sleeping toddler and asked my husband how we would survive all this he gave me the perfect advice: we'll love her and keep our sense of humor. And with that, the burden of perfection was gone.

Somewhere out there are children starving, being beaten and abused and abandoned. Mine are throwing temper tantrums over not getting Goldfish crackers for breakfast and calling me "mean" when I make them say "please." But at some point, parents have caved in to all the books and lectures and pamphlets that insist we should agonize over their psyches, their emotional expressions, their rights to privacy and their manufactured rights to be sheltered from ever experiencing unpleasantness in the form of competition or rejection. At some point a swat on the rear-end became physical abuse and losing your temper became emotional abuse. We have been told that we should distract not thwart; discuss not inform; cajole not demand. And that places an immense burden on us as parents. It makes us feel that any mistake we make is set in stone forever. So we freak when we lose our temper and yell, we agonize over whether we have been consistent enough, we blame ourselves when these wonderful, uncivilized little savages we gave birth to act in accordance with their nature and bite the kid next door. Teaching takes time and patience and we are dealing with living souls, not quick-dry cement. Have you ever noticed how unconcerned grandparents are? It's because they know the secret; love and a sense of humor go much farther than you realize.