The Nature of Parenting

“But Gage is so good. You don’t know how easy you have it.” By the time she takes a breath after the first phrase, my thumbnail is already poised beneath the tip of her chin – first position stance for Pez popping her pretty little neck. With a flick of my thumb, her head snaps back and detaches from her neck in one fluid motion. Unlike my Tweety Bird dispenser, a strawberry tile candy does not pop out. Still, I am gratified.

As I return to reality, I see my sweet little angel mentally tallying his points. I look down and see his fingers drumming together in front of him in Gargamellian satisfaction. I double-take and realize he’s actually posing his tiny hands in pious modesty. Little imp.

Comments such as these are tossed my way quite often by mothers who find their children’s behavior less than desirable, especially in comparison to my child. Of course, the only rational explanation for this MUST be that my child, and therefore Shane and I, have been genetically blessed. How else could a two-year-old interact with others politely, fear the quiet chair sufficiently to turn his attitude around by the time I get to “two,” and clean up after himself? God must think we are something special.

Get real! I have three hypotheses that might just trump your magic wand theory. One, might it be the fact that you are comparing your child to my child IN FRONT of the children in the first place that is causing a bit of dissonance in your sphere? God forbid the poor kid has a sibling. With those life-long comparisons, she doesn’t stand a chance!

Let me be fair. Maybe it’s me and not you after all. We might be looking at an old fashioned case of nature versus nurture. However, we seem to have different perspectives on nature, so let’s start there.

Intelligent Design. Maybe God did play a part in Gage being an “easy-going” kid, or as we fondly refer to him – our little stoner. As I reflect on my life thus far, I can promise you that this would be due to no merit of my own. Maybe it was an act of natural selection. After 32 years of being a royal pain in his divine tuckus, maybe God wanted to provide my child a fighting chance at life without a mother incarcerated or institutionalized for offspring-related crimes. I am neither a patient soul, nor one who tolerates high levels of idiocy. My God is an efficient God. I have every reason to believe that in forecasting his resource commitments, it was far more productive to give me a “good natured” kid versus trying to clean up the carnage that would surely result from my raising a difficult kid. In that case, I’m not the lucky one. Gage is. Give credit where credit is due.

Then again, might there be an iota of a chance that even a sliver of my child’s civilized behavior is a reflection of my parenting skills? Maybe there’s a little something to that structure, consistency, and discipline that you tsk tsk so often? “Kids will be kids.” Yeah, and llamas will be llamas but that doesn’t mean I’ll allow said llama to use my floor as a spittoon! I can promise you that while maintaining order is not as overwhelmingly chaotic and exhausting as say cleaning up my child’s every mess for him and succumbing to his disrespectful demands, it certainly is not easy. Loving my child enough to meet him where he is and to help him grow into a happy, responsible, contributing adult is not easy. Doing the best for my child is not easy.

So, you can go on using the fact that I am lucky to have such a “good” kid to excuse yourself from your own parenting gaps. Just remember this. One day your spoiled little ill-mannered princess is going to get her heart broken by some shaggy haired frat boy. She’s going to come crying to my little “boy-next-door” whom she’s been stomping all over since the day they met. When things don’t go quite the way she (or you) had planned, don’t come whining to me. It’s just his nature. I have nothing to do with it. Kids will be kids.

And I’m not loaning you my magic wand.