There are moments in motherhood when you realize the lesson you thought you were teaching your children is not, in fact, the lesson they have been learning.
I had one of those moments yesterday.
Actually, I had about three of them in the span of 24 hours, and by the end of it, my children (and a few other children who happened to fall under my responsibility…lucky for them) got a pretty lengthy speech about communication, consideration and the fact that I am a mother, not a magician.
It started with my soon-to-be stepson needing $40 in cash for tickets at school. That’s a perfectly reasonable request, except for one small detail: he told me the morning he needed it at like 6:55 a.m.
Now, I don’t carry cash. I’m lucky if I have a crumpled dollar bill floating around somewhere in the bottom of my purse. Like most people these days, I swipe a card, use my phone or send money electronically. So when a child tells me at approximately “we need to leave the house now” o’clock that he needs $40 in actual American currency, that simple request suddenly becomes a logistical problem.
Of course, we figured it out, because that’s what moms do.
Then came Emerson.
My oldest casually mentioned that she needed a dress for her homecoming pictures and lunch the following day. I stared at her for a second, waiting for the rest of the story… the part where perhaps she explained that she had only just learned about this herself.
Nope. She just needed a dress. Tomorrow!!!
Now, homecoming is not exactly an unpredictable event. It didn’t sneak up on us in the middle of the night. No one woke up that morning and decided there should suddenly be homecoming pictures the next day. This information had apparently existed for some period of time; it simply had not made its way to the one person responsible for making sure the dress actually appeared.
Again, we handled it, but I cannot take complete credit for that. That one was a group effort thanks to her stepmom and some amazing friends!
By that afternoon, I had apparently become a little too confident that we had exhausted our supply of last-minute information for the day.
But……
My nephew had football practice that ended at 5 p.m., and I was supposed to pick him up. I planned around it like any normal person would. Five o’clock came and went. Then 5:05. Then 5:10.
Around 5:15, I finally called to see what was going on. That’s when I learned they were staying for the football game.
I believe my exact internal response was something along the lines of, “Well, that’s wonderful information to have now,” and that was the moment the day’s minor inconveniences stopped being separate incidents and became a full-blown family meeting.
The problem wasn’t the $40. It wasn’t the dress, and it certainly wasn’t that they wanted to stay for a football game. I don’t mind doing any of those things. In fact, I like being the person my kids know they can depend on. If they need something, I want them to call me. If they need a ride, I want to be the person they aren’t afraid to ask.
What I don’t want is for them to grow up believing that loving someone means that person’s time doesn’t have to be considered.
That’s when I realized there was probably a parenting lesson in all of this for me, too.
Mothers are fixers. We become so accustomed to making things happen that we don’t always stop to explain what it takes to make them happen. A child says they need $40, and somehow $40 appears. They need a dress tomorrow, and we get in the car. Practice turns into a football game, and we rearrange the evening.
From their perspective, everything worked out.
From ours, we’ve mentally rewritten the day’s schedule four times, moved errands around, changed dinner plans, made an unexpected trip to the store and possibly considered hiding in the pantry for five minutes where no one can ask us for anything.
And because we keep pulling it off, our kids can begin to think that’s simply how life works, but one day, it won’t be Momma they’re dealing with. It will be a roommate, a spouse, a boss, a coworker or a friend. Those people are going to expect them to communicate. They’re going to expect them to respect other people’s schedules. They’re going to expect them to understand that changing plans affects more than just the person whose plans changed.
That’s what the long talking-to eventually became about.
I wasn’t trying to make them feel guilty for needing me. I never want them to hesitate to ask me for help. I was trying to teach them the difference between needing someone’s help and assuming someone’s availability.
Those are two very different things.
If you know you’re going to need money, tell me when you find out. If you have an event coming up and need something to wear, let’s talk about it before we’re within hours of needing it. And if someone is planning to pick you up at 5 p.m. and you decide you’re staying somewhere longer, please (I’m begging you) send a text!
I don’t think that’s really a rule about living in my house. It’s a rule about being considerate of other human beings.
I also know they’re kids, and kids are notoriously terrible at thinking more than about 15 minutes into the future. I don’t expect perfection. I’m sure yesterday won’t be the last time someone tells me about a school project at 9 p.m. or suddenly remembers a permission slip while we’re pulling into the school parking lot.
And I’ll probably keep figuring it out, because that’s part of motherhood, too, but I’m trying to remember that rescuing them from every last-minute problem without making them think about how it happened doesn’t necessarily help them in the long run. Sometimes the most useful part comes after we’ve solved the immediate problem, when we sit down and talk about how we could have handled it differently.
So, as of yesterday, we have a new family policy.
I am requesting notice. Not a formal request. Not three to five business days. I’m not asking anyone to submit paperwork or schedule an appointment on my calendar. Just something more than, “Oh, by the way, I need this right now.”
Because I will move mountains for these kids. I’d just appreciate knowing about the mountain before we’re standing at the bottom of it.
(Paige Gurgainers is a mom of three girls, digital journalist for Webster Parish Journal.)