There are times I look at my children and wonder what they’ll do with their lives. What will they be? What sort of interests will they develop? Will they be doctors? Lawyers? Accountants? Actors? Writers? Adventurers?
And the biggie…will they make good choices?
Everything I’ve done as a mother often can be traced back to a burning desire to teach my children some sort of lesson. Lessons about life. Lessons that I hope and pray will serve them well in their pursuit of a fruitful existence. I want them to be liked, to do well, and to be happy.
Well, any fellow parent that’s in the same biz and operates with a similar parental protocol can tell you that too often teaching those lessons is hard. It takes a lot of resolve to stand firm when your child gives you those huge puppy dog eyes rimmed with crocodile tears. It honestly breaks your heart.
This morning, we were presented with the perfect opportunity to teach our oldest a bit of responsibility and if ever my parental resolve was tested to the limit, it was today.
In short, Hayden discovered he’d left his backpack at home….right as we were pulling into car rider drop off. If anyone has ever had the pleasure of experiencing said drop off, you know that there is a magic hour. A time in which you should be merging into the car rider line without sitting for what feels like hours. Morning commute, by nature, has a magic hour when a meager time frame of minutes can make it or break it. Leave the house at 7 and have a smooth sailing commute. Leaving the house 6 minutes later means sitting in traffic that creates road rage of mass quantity. So when my dear first born discovered he’d left his backpack and we were within the magic hour, I knew that turning around to head back to our house was a recipe for timely disaster.
There are a lot of things I’m responsible for as a mother, and making sure my children get from point A to point B on time (and in one piece) is one of them. Not to mention, my own personal responsibility to arrive at my place of gainful employment at the appropriate time. Turning around prior to dropping him off, was simply not an option…as I would have failed in my obligation as his mom to get him to school on time. So I told him if I had enough time after I dropped his brother off, to go home to retrieve the beloved backpack and take it to the school, that I would. Knowing full well, that I wouldn’t have time. With eyes as big as saucers and rimmed with the above-mentioned crocodile tears, he pleaded with unspoken words to please get his backpack. But I turned away and cranked my resolve up to Mach 10 explaining that I would do my best, but the prognosis was not good and he may have to do without.
His responsibility to is make sure he has his backpack. I pack it and he makes sure he actually has it in the car, and he knows this. The lesson that floated to the top was clear…let him experience the mistake of what leaving your backpack at home means. Chances are he’s more likely to remember that thing in the future and not to mention, what that means on a bigger scale with responsibility.
Oh it hurt to see the revelation that he’d messed up! To know that I could easily come to the rescue and needed to choose the harder option, which was to let him fail so he could learn the lesson, had my Mommy heart in a vise.
I went back and forth…is 6 too young to teach this lesson? Maybe just this once? Will he feel as if he cannot count on the one person that loves him more than anyone? He’s only 6!!!
But then a louder voice bellowed above my weakness. The lesson and what it might mean if he never learns it. What if every other choice he makes could be traced back to this very moment. Rescue someone one too many times and they lose the ability to rescue themselves. You know the whole give a man a fish and he eats for a day….teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. And if there is one thing I want above everything, it is to have children that can fend for themselves when no one is left to count on.
I gotta say…the lines of mental resolve going on at 7:30 this morning were thick, and I did not go to the house to get the bag. It hurts me…even now, hours later, to think of what he might have thought, but this is where the business of parenting gets difficult. Sometimes we have to be the bad guy in the eyes of our kids, especially when the benefit of what they’ll learn is greater than what their opinion of us as their parents is.
Truly, the lesson here is bigger than anything and I'm beginning to truly understand why seasoned parents say that the baby years are truly the easiest.
*While I did not get the backpack, I did stop by a curb store to pick him up some crackers and took those to the school office along with lunch money. I mean…the kid’s gotta eat, right?*
0 comments:
Post a Comment