School of hard knocks

"It's a hard knock life!"

So I think the reason parents are tempted to control their kids is because you can either learn from others hard knocks or from your own, and they can't stand to see their kids get hard knocks.  I understand this feeling.  When my kids are fighting over something, especially when it gets physical and really mean, I am tempted to take the object away.  Sometimes I do, while sarcastically scolding it.  "Alligator, you are not being very nice, look you went and made Peaceful fight with Happy.  You need to take a break until you can play nicer."  When I am tired (always) and in survival get it done mode (always, except for when I am consciously trying really really hard not to be), instead of in teaching parent mode, I resort to the forced figure it out model of control.  Stop the situation until they figure it out or forget it.  I like to think that this is somehow superior than those parents who say "Sally gets the toy because she had it first!"  or " Give the toy to the baby, he's younger!", but in reality, it's just because I absolutely hate being the judge!  This is why I hate money.  I don't want to have to choose who in this world lives or dies, and if you have money, you can save lives, but not all of them, so you are choosing.  But even more so, you are choosing life for those whose lives you save, and maybe they would rather just have a color television for three months before they die, than have their life saved. 

Anyway, I think that despite my need to think I am a superior parent, the kids would actually like it more if I played judge.  Sometimes we do.  I have another kid be the judge (hate being the judge) and we hold court and have witnesses and make fun of the whole thing and laugh a lot and over do it and the whole family gets involved and we use some poor stuffed animal as the hammer and by the end all you can hear is "ORDER!  ORDER!  ORDER!" and then someone orders French fries or another sibling because I have told them too many times when they say they want me to have triplets next with 2 boys and a girl (or something else specific, like hair color) - anyway, I am always telling them that I am not McDonalds and I can't take their order.  It just doesn't work that way.  Of course I go into the details of how the DNA is already set before I even know I am pregnant, but that is what comes from having scientists (unemployed scientists no-less), for parents.

Sometimes I'm quite certain that my kids would prefer to have a normal judge parent, because it isn't the toy they want, they want, like we all do, to be justified, to be right.  If I would only just say, "OK, tell me what happened" and then listen and sympathize like my mom always did when I was growing up - she never did anything about it being my sisters fault, but boy I knew she understood my point of view of the situation and was on my side.  If only I'd do that, then it would be worth any form of judgment or punishment. 

Punishment is a weird thing.  The way we define it, to differentiate between it and things we do do, like pulling a kicking screaming fighting kid off of another kicking screaming fighting kid, is that punishment is after the fact.  So the fight is over, they've calmed down, and 2 seconds later are playing like they don't have the others teeth marks still wet on their arm, and then I'm supposed to prolong the fight and get involved and "punish" them to teach them that fights are so bad that we need to focus more of our precious time here on earth on them.  "No!  Don't play nicely now, I need to punish you!"

So, back to the school of hard knocks.  When I am "on" - I've been a parent for over a decade of toddlers, and so I have had some few moments when I was actually "on" and followed what I preached online, lol! - When I am "on" I let them solve their own problems.  I don't have a good solution for keeping the teeth marks from happening - so I fight too, and hold one kid (this isn't the part where I am "on"), and then the other kid has the item.  And I watch the other kid skip off happily with the item, but not really, because here is where the hard knocks come in.  This is what I am really trying to spare my kid from feeling by not allowing them to make choices.  This is why I don't "let" my kid do anything bad.  Because we are all human, we all have consciences, and whether he had the toy first or has the most teeth marks or not, he knows how his sibling feels.  If I say anything, it is ruined.  I have cheated him of knowing it isn't me he is pleasing, but himself.  This is where the doubt comes in, as for some reason I tend to assume the basic instinct in humans is selfishness when it comes to tangible objects.  But I am not happy when I act that way, so why should I assume the rest of the world, even my precious innocent kid, is somehow "more material" than my holier-than-thou self.  And then it comes.  Almost not wanting me to see, (so I look the other way), he comes back and hands the item to his sibling, and she smiles as one can only do from knowing they are loved - no toy can produce this smile -  and then she says she doesn't really need it and hands it back to him, and they are playing again, just as intensely as before, and I don't exists in their own little world of intense immagination.  And this is where I keep my mouth shut, because as tempted as I am to spare my child the agony of true sorrow for going against his inner conscience, I wouldn't steal his joy of reconciling his actions with the inner love we all have, for the world.  And it is hard to hear this joy over the sound of loud praises, and "good boy" judgments, especially coming from someone you want to please as much as your mom.

- Smelling the butterflies