The Things Dr. Spock Never Told Us

When my children were tiny, then small, then in the initial stages of growing up, I periodically consulted the experts to reassure myself that I and they would survive.  Unlike 21st century parents, my generation had but one reliable source: Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care. 

As most children do, mine had their fears, and I, as most parents do, tried to assuage them. I did whatever it took to prove that no monsters lurked inside their closets or beneath their beds.  I did not argue with anything that helped them to feel safe. One of my girls took a running leap from mid floor and dived into bed to avoid whatever lurked beneath. A son slept with the overhead light on for years.  I looked at them as they slept and marveled at the wonder of it all, hoping I could always protect them from the beasts of life, real or imagined.

Then came the day that I tucked in each of my beautiful children, and he or she awoke as a teenager. (Note: Teenager is not defined by the year but by the attitude and can occur anytime at or after age ten..)  At this point, it helped me to understand what was going to occur in my life for the next one to nine years because I had read and taught Golding's Lord of the Flies--a more reliable source for this particular period in a child's life than Dr. Spock could ever hope to provide.

Suddenly, the child who had valued my opinion, wanted to go with me wherever I went, answered the question: "What happened at school today?" was the monster in the bedroom.  That monster did not want my opinion or my existence.

After all, what did I know, I who was spawned in another century on another planet. "You don't understand," they'd lament, even though I was relatively sure that I did.  I knew that I was really a "with it" person, but they could not see this through their Lord of the Flies symptomatic blindness.  Not only did they refuse to be seen with me, sometimes they did not even claim me. If and when they did, it was with apologies: "Mom's a little weird."

I tried to understand the look of horror on their faces when I suggested that we do something together.  After all, I was young once, regardless of what they thought.  I once threw a fit at the prospect of an outing with my very pregnant mother, a 10-year-old sister, an obnoxious 8-year-old brother, and my grandmother.  I was practically thirteen and had my standards.  I probably said, "I'd rather die!"  To a teenage girl, this is not high drama.  It is absolute truth. Many parents learn, as the teenager invades their own lives, that Karma is a bitch.

No child wants to become this inexplicable, irrational beast, but hormones negate that desire, once they are in overdrive.  I've taught teenagers for nearly three decades and have passed through this ordeal as a mother of four. I know what I am talking about.  Been there; done that, as it were.

During one dark period in my life, I had two teens experiencing what could, at the very least, be called "a difficult stage."  Picture the 13-year-old girl sitting in the back seat wit the 17-year-old boy.  Their initial fight had been over whose turn it was to sit in the front seat, and so I had made them both sit in the back and put the 10-year-old in the front with me.  He was still being human.)

The two teens in the back continued bickering.  I continued to utter the empty phrases learned from my own mother: "Do you want me to pull over?" or "If I have to stop this car...." (Dante should have had teens in their bestial stage as the ultimate torture in his circles of Hell.)

Once I'd dumped out the teens at their music lessons, the 10-year-old son, an earnest child, said, "I promise I won't do that when I get older."

"Oh, yes you will, " I replied with great resignation. "You won't be able to help it.  I do appreciate your desire to try," I said, patting him on the head.  "It happens to all of us."

"You mean you acted that way? he asked.  He was shocked.

"'Friad so," I confessed.  "Your grandmother always said, 'I hope you have children who behave exactly as you're behaving at this moment.'"  I frequently remind her that I have been repaid, in spades.  She just smiles a self-satisfied smile and knows she has been vindicated."

Jack, Piggy, Ralph,  the twins and others landed in Golding's deserted Eden.  There were no adults to corrupt them, no violent movies, television, or video games.  But those boys were between the ages of eleven and fourteen.  Things could not have ended well.

And so, where does this leave you as a parent with a formerly lovely child who now appears to need exorcism?  I could placate you with, "And this too shall pass," and it will.  In the meantime, find a support group, know that you are not alone, and pray that your child has a child who pays them back.  Revenge does have its merits and sweet rewards in Life's more troubling times.

Drama in the DNA

I’m not sure when the drama gene ceased being recessive and instead became a dominant gene in my family, but, alas, I carry it and have passed it on to my children and grandchildren.  As a child, I tended to overdramatize any situation I found to be tragic, and, needless to say, I saw myself as a little girl tragically suffering from Life’s unfair transgressions against my own code of fairness.  My grandmother called me Sarah Barnhart.  I didn’t have the faintest idea who Sarah was, but I knew this wasn’t a compliment.  As I grew a bit older and began to recognize sarcasm, I knew that I was being ridiculed--wrongly and unjustly ridiculed, of course.

 When I was told I couldn’t do something I greatly desired to do, my response was pretty predictable.  I’d cry out about the unfairness, stomp and flail, marvel that people who supposedly loved me could heap such travesties upon me.  I’d quickly slip into my usual: “Why! Why me! Life is so unfair!” I stopped just short of “Alas and Alack!” but I was feeling it in my nearly broken heart.  It wasn’t much of a leap for me to get to the “If I die, they’ll be sorry” state.  I could picture myself looking down upon the grieving relatives who’d be weeping about the number of times they’d wronged me.  Yes, I’d rightfully earned the title of Drama Queen.

My oldest son, Gavin, became an actor and put the drama gene to better use, but he was trying during his formative years.  He threatened to run away from home every other day until I finally dared him to do it.  “Fine!”  I said. “Go ahead.  But if you leave, you have to leave only with what you came in with.  Take off your clothes.  I paid for those!”  Drama on both sides ensued, but he did decide to stay. 

 Another time, when he’d been grounded from watching television for a week for misbehaving, he threatened to call Child Protective Services. I fake dialed the number for him, then held the receiver in my hand and said, “Go ahead and tell them how horrid your life is.  I’m sure the next home you go to will not have a nice bedroom, a play room, a bicycle, numerous toys, a mother who feeds, clothes, and loves you unconditionally!  I doubt if they will be able to drive you to piano lessons either!” Okay, I was being dramatic, but I learned early on that meeting drama with drama was the best tool to use with Gavin.  He never used the threat to call to Child Protective Services again either.  My mother handled things differently.

When I was about eight or nine, I threatened to run away from home, ran into my room and slammed the door.  A few minutes later, Mom brought a suitcase into my room, put it onto the bed, and opened it.  “Do you want me to help you pack?” she said, ever so calmly. 

 Well, I called her bluff.  “I’ll do it myself, thank you,” I replied and marched myself to the closet and started pulling out clothes and throwing them into the suitcase.

Mom was standing by the bed, her arms folded across her chest, just watching me.  As I purposefully snapped the case shut and pulled it off the bed, Mom looked at me said, “I’ll miss you.  Write when you can.”  She walked out the door and down the stairs.  But I was serious.  I was going to show her a thing or two.  I really was going to run away, and then she’d be sorry.  I dragged the suitcase down the stairs, just knowing she’d come running up to me, sobbing about how wrong she’d been and admitting that she had grievously wronged me.  She was nowhere in sight.

 “I’m leaving!” I proclaimed and walked out the front door and onto the porch.  No one followed.  Well, I couldn’t back down now, could I?  And so I began running—well, walking—away.  I made it down Front Street—perhaps three blocks—then turned up Court Street—which is one block—and turned right on Second.  I made it a block and a half to the Ford Motor Showroom, and then regained my senses. Where was I going to sleep?  And besides, it was supper time.  When I’d left, hadn’t I smelled fried chicken?

I turned around and dragged my suitcase back the same route, walked into the house, hauled the case up the stairs, fully expecting Mom and my grandmother to come running in from the kitchen, tearfully smiling and crying out how much they’d missed me.  It didn’t happen.  After I’d unpacked, I went down to the kitchen.  Mom turned around and said, “Karen, call Tomi and Ben in and wash your hands.  Supper’s ready.” I never ran away again either. Obviously, the drama gene was not dominent in my mother.

My grandson Boone is now 31/2 and one who has an innate sense of drama as grand as any I’ve known.  Most recently, it made itself manifest with the play kitchen episode. Let me give you the full scenario in order for you to fully understand what I mean.

Last Christmas, Santa Claus gave Boone a play kitchen with little pots and pans as well as an assortment of plastic food replicas.  He loved playing with that kitchen for nearly a year, but in recent months, he’s only put all of the food into the oven and cupboard, shut the doors, and left it, all neat and tidy.  His little brother, eighteen-month-old Rowan, is now the right age to play with the kitchen.  However, whenever he opens the doors to the oven or cupboard, the food that Boone has stashed in it falls out onto the floor, thereby causing Boone to wail, “Rowan James!  Don’t do that! I just put that food away!”  At this point, Boone rushes over, pushes Rowan away, causing Rowan to cry.  This results in Boone’s getting a time out, during which he cries and bemoans the mistreatment of his kitchen in general and himself in particular.

Yesterday, right before Boone was to leave for pre-school, the same drama ensued over who could use the play kitchen and how.  Samantha had had enough.  “All right!  That’s it!  I’m taking that kitchen to Goodwill, and nobody can play with it.”

Boone could not believe the horror of his mother’s threat and threw himself onto the floor and sobbed uncontrollably.  Samantha decided to let him thrash it out and walked around him as he lay flailing on the floor.  When the sobs subsided, she made Boone clean up the mess he’d made.  With no provocation whatsoever, he cried out, “I knew this day would come!  I knew this day would come!”  I am so glad I wasn’t present because I fear I might have burst out laughing.  However, Samantha put both boys into their car seats and put on Boone’s shoes and combed his hair “while he was restrained in his car seat,” she said.  She then told him that he would have to apologize to Miss Joanne for being late to school and tell her that he had been misbehaving.  He agreed.

But then, calm was shattered when the drove past Goodwill.  “Oh no!”  Boone howled and started crying again.  The kitchen wasn’t even in the car, but he knew that that horrid day of reckoning had arrived, that his kitchen would be lost for all time.

Samantha finally got him to hear--as she is driving mind you--that the kitchen wasn’t even in the car, but that there would be new rules for playing with it in the future.  “From now on,” she said, “when Rowan plays with the kitchen, you can’t play with it.  Rowan can play with it any way he chooses.  When you play with it, Rowan will leave it alone.  You can take it in your room and close the door. Do you understand?”

Samantha said that Boone replied, “Well.  Okay.  Now I know the rule.”

“Like this whole thing was my fault!” Samantha told me, indignantly.

So far, the drama has missed little ginger-haired Rowan.  He is a chill little smiley boy.  Yes, he may pitch a hissy once in a while, but not unnecessarily dramatically.  So far, that is.

I am in Louisville now, and Samantha called me to tell me about this incident.  I started laughing so hard from “I knew this day would come” until the saga ended. I couldn’t even respond and had to hang up and call back later.  I’m laughing now, just recalling it.  Drama, and them some, courses through Boone’s veins.

I see vestiges of the dominant drama gene in my little one-year-old granddaughter, Greer.  She talks often but has few discernible words at this point.  However, if she is put into her crib when she doesn’t want to be there, she jabbers loudly and with inflections that sound like outrage at the injustice of it all.  Today, Kristin is working—she’s a nurse—and John and I are home with Greer.  She needed a nap but was fighting it every step of the way.  We heard a thud and worried that she had hurled herself from the bed.  Turns out she had just taken off all the teething guards from the bed rails and tossed them onto the floor.  Not taking any chances that she might accidently fall asleep, thus allowing us to win, she pitched out her lovey rabbit and her pacifier.  She then stood up in her crib and chastised us loudly and emphatically.  We ignored her.  She then howled so loudly that we were in danger of having some neighbor call to complain. John finally relented and went in to get her.  She had not a tear in her eyes, and when he carried her out, she looked at me, wrinkled her nose and grinned at me as if to say, “I win!”  Things should be interesting as she grows up!