Here’s a joke from 40 years ago. Let me know if you recognize it: A man comes home from work to see his two year-old son on the kitchen floor happily playing in a puddle of spilled milk. In the next room, the man observes his older son, age five, shaving the cat with an electric razor. Walking gingerly past dirty laundry and piles of dishes, the man heads upstairs through a maze of toys.
In the bedroom, he sees his wife sprawled happily in her housedress with her feet up, eating chocolates, watching television. Outraged, the man sputters: “What the heck is going on here?”
His wife calmly replies, “Remember yesterday when you asked me what I do here all day? Well, today, I didn’t do it.”
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Which brings us to a more serious point: What if it turns out that you can’t have it all?
What if–when your children are aged five, three and one, you can have a clean house or a happy house, but not both? Obviously, we would all prefer–in a perfect world–to live in a house that is both tidy and one in which there is sweetness and light. Obviously we would prefer good conversation and loving relationships to walk hand in hand with order and cleanliness. Clearly, a five year-old should not be shaving the cat with a razor, electric or otherwise. But what if it’s just not possible? What if the only way to have a clean house is for mom and dad to clean for hours after working and taking care of children all day? What if by cleaning until all hours, they are so grouchy that they fuss at one another and the children?
What if the solution is to let the dishes pile up in the sink all day? Who could bear to live with such a mess? If the only way to have a clean house is to have a home where the grown-ups are miserable, maybe a slight move in the direction of disorder may be the way to go.
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What if your child refuses to play the didgeridoo?
In an ideal world, your gentle protestations would encourage her to love music in general and the didgeridoo specifically. She would look forward to practicing the didgeridoo; she would invite her friends over for didgeridoo quartets. But down here in this world inhabited by actual children, didgeridoo practice has become a power and control issue that escalates to the point of nuclear war.
Of course, you can force her to practice the didgeridoo. You are the parent after all and have the power to enforce your will. You can threaten and coerce, punish and reward, bully and bribe. But at what cost? At some point, a happy home without the dulcet sounds of the didgeridoo may be preferable to a miserable one with an accomplished didgeridoo player.
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Here’s the toughest argument of all: Maybe your child is not going to get a PhD in philosophy from Princeton. Even if you give her psycho-stimulants.
Is your ninth grader studying six hours a day, more on the weekends? If he is doing endless homework, filling is worksheets, memorizing tedious information? Are you at war, every day of the school year? Is your child prevaricating with you because every conversation about school work becomes a war? Is your child so nervous before tests that he has stomache trouble and so nervous before exams that he throws up?
Maybe it’s time to think about reorganizing the priorities of the family.
When your wife said, “It’s time” and you drove like a stunt driver to the hospital, you wanted two things: to get to the delivery room on time. And to have a baby with ten fingers and ten toes. That was the deal and you promised your higher power, “God, just give me a healthy baby and I’ll never ask for anything ever again. All I want is to see ten fingers and ten toes.”
And when–some anxiety prone hours later–you held your healthy son in your arms and you wept for joy and you stroked your wife’s hair and you knew that never in your life could you ever be so relieved and happy again, was there any conversation about a didgeridoo?
I didn’t think so.
If I could ensure that my child would be happy and healthy, productive and content, I’d be willing to consider making him clean the house, play the didgeridoo, and take adderol for his attentional issues. If instead, all I can guarantee is that we’ll all be grumpy with each other if I force him to do these things, I’m going to go back to being grateful that he has ten fingers and toes.
I await–and invite–incoming.
Warmly,
David
