| This week's column. |
| A new column posted every Monday. |
Give Me Peace And Quiet
©Lisa Barker
January 5, 2009
A reader introduced me to a quote recently that completely expresses my point of view. “Raising children is like being pecked to death by a chicken.” Amen!
Little by little, day-by-day, they wear you down. “Momma, she’s touching me. Momma, he looked at me. I don’t like sauce on my noodles! How come HE gets to stay up late and I don’t? I don’t want to pick up my toys.”
I used to try to reason with them. “Don’t sit so close to each other and then you won’t touch. You look out the left window and you look out the right and then you won’t look at each other. Okay, if you don’t want sauce on your noodles, just move them over to the side of your plate. Etc., etc.”
Now I just say: “Shut up.”
I know, real mature of me. But I don’t care about fairness anymore. I don’t care about setting a good example. I don’t care about teaching them something. I just want peace and quiet.
Now this has nothing to do with the number of kids I have. It has everything to do with the fact that these people think it’s their job to break me. They won’t let up until I am a bent old woman, with hazy eyes and silver hair. That’s how they know it’s time to stop picking on me and start having grandchildren.
Thank God for osteoporosis. I know that when I start slumping over my torture is complete. Until then, I must endure.
“I don’t want to pick up my toys. It’s too hard. I don’t want to eat my dinner. I’m allergic to it. I don’t want to fold my clothes. It takes too long.”
If they’d just do what I ask of them, we’d all get along much better. But my expectations place restrictions on their pleasure and yet when I leave them to themselves all I hear is how bored they are.
“There’s nothing to do!”
“This basket of clothes needs to be folded.”
In my day this was my cue to leave the house immediately and find something else to do beyond the scope of my mother’s radar so that I would not have to do any chores. The logic is simple. If she can’t see me, she can’t think of something for me to do that I don’t want to do.
My kids don’t get that. In fact, they think I’m making humorous suggestions. My son laughs and counter suggests that I take him to the store and buy him some snacks.
“Hello? No, son, really. Fold these.”
“But it takes too long!”
“And so does raising you. Now hop to it.”
|
