There’s Always Therapy

My in-laws can’t tell me enough how wonderful our daughter is. She’s polite, she’s “easy,” she speaks so well. But they also don’t hesitate to tell me I’m too hard on her when I insist that she say “excuse me” when interrupting our conversation or that I have a zero-tolerance policy on (the first signs of) tantrums. So today I looked my father in law square in the eye when he ways saying I was being to hard on her and said “I’m a mean mom, but if I have a good kid as a result, that’s fine by me.” He actually laughed and said it should be the title of a book. I started laughing with him and said, “I have the subtitle for the book: …and if she hates me, there’s always therapy.”

Childrearing and the Unified Front

I’m no military theorist, but I have noticed that some parents work as a team, while others are at odds. I’ve also noticed that the behavior of the resulting offspring differs as well.

Last night, we had a couple over for dinner with two amazing teenaged daughters. That’s right, I did say amazing teenagers. In fact, their girls have been wonderful all the 9 years I’ve known them. Sure, they have dust-ups, but these are polite, charming, focused girls who I’d be proud to call my own. In fact–being not innately geared toward breeding myself–they gave me a lot of inspiration to have kids at all: You can remain coherent, interesting people AND raise decent humans.

Anyhow, there we were, mid meal, when my girl helped out a panicked “I have to go potty!” (Nothing goes better with ceviche  than graphic toilet talk.) My husband quickly scooped her up and bolted for the toilet, as she can hold it a bit long when distracted by social situations. The remaining dad at the table looked at me and said, “you guys are such great parents. You are such a team and you have a really wonderful daughter because of it.” His wife clarified this unexpected effusiveness, explaining that they’d recently dined with another couple who have a 4 and a 6 year old who are complete wild things. They said they’d actually almost left because the children were so constantly screaming that they actually just felt uncomfortable, like they were witnessing something they shouldn’t be.

On the ride home, the two had pondered the possible reasons why the kids were so out of control and they may have hit on it: Mom has one set of rules which dad completely disregards; blatantly at times saying things like “She’d kill me if she knew I was letting them do X, ha ha” while mom is in the kitchen.

I’m not saying my husband and I never disagree on what is the “right” thing to do with our daughter, but we try to do it out of her earshot. The fact is, kids are innately brilliant at the divide and conquer tactic. Even the most minor chink in the mommy-daddy front, and they charge in tantrum-guns blazing to demolish any semblance of peace or sanity. No, there’s no one way to be a parent, and no one set of rules for kids. But if mom and dad work together, at least they have consistency working for them against this, the wiliest (and most worthy) of adversaries.

Tone Deaf

Hostilities can escalate quickly in toddler-ridden homes. Remonstration starts off with a gentle “honey don’t do that” and before you know it, you find yourself reaching for the first available hard object and seeing targets on your little one’s backside. None of us wants it to get that far, but the ability of a three year old to locate and then systematically twang a parent’s last nerve is nothing short of uncanny. Military leaders worldwide should coordinate think tanks in an effort to harness this powerful negative force.

One observation about escalation I’ve made, however: The screaming mom gets no respect. And the more she screams, the less respect she’ll get. Not only will she draw a crowd in public places with her read face and ear splitting tones, but her kids mostly ignore her. So she yells louder and they either respond in kind or indifferently continue their offending behaviors. In fact, my daughter starts to enjoy the public attention, rather than viewing it as a negative. For me, it works best to remove her from “her public” and quietly (if fiercely) scold. Don’t get me wrong, there are times at which yelling is an utterly appropriate action (“STOP!” when your child is headed into traffic). But even at daycare I notice that the teachers who drop their voices into that near-growling register get more props than the headless-chicken hollering types. Hell, to this day I still recall with a shudder the sound of my 90lb, 4 ft 10 in grandma’s voice saying, “Well, dear, I’m just so disappointed in you.” It’s been at least 25 years since the last time she said that to me. Ouch; that’s discipline.

Compare and Contrast

Nothing worse than a maternal pissing-contest. Nobody gets very far and more than likely, you just end up with your own legs getting wet. Alas, they are common and sometimes unavoidable.

I found myself at the table with a competitive mother the other night. Everything I said was met with an attempt to one up. I am an odd mom, though, as my co-blogger Amanda would certainly attest. I am a workaholic in all things while at the same time leaning toward the hippy side of life. Thus, my dear daughter used organic cloth diapers, breast fed (less and less, of course) until 17 months, and ate home made baby food. And I worked full time from the time she was 2 weeks old (luckily, at home for much of the time).

My antagonist at the table, however, thinks breastfeeding is icky, didn’t know they even made cloth diapers anymore, and when I said I made my own baby food almost stabbed me with a fork. I would have pointed out that the trade off was that she is thin and tan, where I am bloated and pasty, but I’m guessing only her date would have laughed. (Honestly, I repeatedly said every mom is different and all kinds of kids are great.)

Interestingly, she asked how my daughter was with tantrums. Now, as we know, I am not unscathed when it comes to this charming aspect of toddler behavior. Oh no. I told her we use the time out chair method and she said that didn’t work for her. I said I had to modify it with social-deprivation (put her in a separate room, facing the wall or she liked being the center of attention in the chair), but my fellow mom said that wouldn’t work either. Her son, as it turns out, mocks her when she scolds him. She said everything she does in terms of discipline inspires him to laugh outright. I will say that while my girl defies me, my mad-mommy voice inspires fear. I would say it is just that I have a meaner mad-mommy voice than my new, uh, friend, but having heard her mad-at-another-mommy voice, I knew she could inspire ill will with her tone.

So I suggested “laying it down hard”: I said, with a dominant dog (do I always come back to dog training? yes, I guess it is my fall back position; I recommended Mother Knows Best, by the way), y0u make the animal earn everything. Food, toys, a walk are all earned through good behavior. I said, take every toy he has away. Stuff ‘em into garbage bags and put them in the garage. Every hour or day or meal he is good, let him pick a toy or book to have back. I could tell she thought I was quite mad. But hey: I never let things get as far as she did with her boy and desperate times call for desperate measures. And since another mom at the table who heard how disrespectful the toddler boy was to his mom, suggested the wooden spoon technique…