Clown Parenting

Grace

I watched a 9 year old child having a melt down over the loss of her entire Minecraft world. The Xbox glitched and it was gone. She was distraught—and if you know anything about the world of Minecraft, you know why.

My own child was just about to explain that he could probably recover the loss. Another child was patting the girl’s back in sympathy. But then mom did this:

“OH NO! Now you’ll have to spend HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS building it all over again! The tragedy!!!!”

And she laughed.

I don’t know if mom had no idea about the game, or if she was tired, or if this was the fortieth meltdown of the day. It was a moment in their day, and nothing was done that couldn’t be undone.

I’m not judging her parenting. I’m just using her words as the example of what sarcasm can do to a child, because lots of parents use sarcasm in their regular rotation.

The daughter knew that her mom was making a joke, but she was too young to understand the subtlety. The entire point of the meltdown was that she lost something that took her hours and hours and hours to build. In her 9 year old brain, it was a tragic situation. So why was her mom making a joke about it, and her?

Her face fell. Her shoulders slumped. She had been sad and disappointed. Now, she was angry and hurt.

I thought, looking at the girl’s face, I have made my children feel the same way.

A few months ago, I heard Patsy Clairmont speak at Women of Faith. She said something true about sarcasm that helped me figure out how to deal with mine.

“Sarcasm is anger that’s gone underground and come back up in a clown’s suit.”

We all laughed. Sarcasm is funny-ish.

But it’s also passive aggressive. Dishonest. Deflecting. I don’t want to be that kind of person and I don’t want to raise that kind of kid.

A few times since then, I have stopped the sarcasm in its tracks and gone with the honest anger instead. Not sure that’s 100% better. Maybe 50%. It tends to be louder, but I’m ok with that because the cost of quiet sarcasm is much higher, too high. My anger is not nasty. At least my kids can track it in a direct line back to its source. They don’t have to wonder what I mean and what it says about them.

I’m working on the volume. Until someone develops a “Make the anger go away instantly” pill that’s not addictive and/or fattening, this will have to be my goal.

To be a Princess

Over time, a lot of negative things have been said about the female characters in the classic Disney fairy tale movies. The original princess, Snow White, finds her greatest worth in cooking and cleaning for seven little men. Aurora actually just sleeps until Prince Philip makes out with her, and instead of standing up to her wench of a stepmother, Cinderella passively endures abuse after abuse until her prince (does he even have a name?) sweeps her off of her slipper-losing feet.

The more modern Disney princesses have a little more spunk, and more often than not, control their own destinies. Belle wants adventure in the great wide somewhere, Merida bucks tradition and refuses to get married, and Elsa and Anna rely on their own act of true love to thaw Anna’s frozen heart. Awesome.

As a mom of two girls, and a self-proclaimed Disney-phile, I fill our house with the movies, merchandise, tiaras, and princess dresses. And while I’ve never taken much stock in the idea that these movies “train” young girls how to behave, I do wonder what, really, it is that they are learning from these movies. Because let me tell you, these girls love them some princesses. Love. And truth be told, so do I.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to ask my Mazie, aged 4, what she liked about the princesses. Is it their dresses? Is it the castle? Is it their beauty? If I had any misgivings about letting my girls watch (obsess over) the princesses, I don’t anymore. Here is what she said she liked about each of the princesses:

Merida – I like that she shoots bows and arrows

Rapunzel – I like her long hair and frying pan

Snow White – I like that she’s nice to the animals

Sleeping Beauty – I like the way she dances so beautifully

Mermaid – I like the way she sings

Cinderella – I like it when she makes clothes for the mice

Elsa and Anna – because they love each other

What I’m taking away from this, folks, is that my daughter is learning that it’s pretty cool to have a good talent and to be strong. She’s also learning kindness. She’s learning that people express themselves in different ways. And she is learning that sisters can also be best friends. What great lessons; critics be damned. I guess we’ll be renewing our Disneyland Annual Passes again this year!

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When Children Fight in Church

Saturday night at church, Gabe and Kate had a fight over whose foot could rest on the bottom of the leg of the kneeler. Not on the kneeler—the kneeler was up. And there was six good feet of folded kneeler available for foot-resting. They were fighting over the 2 inch rubber square on the bottom of the kneeler leg that was sticking up in the air.

First Gabe claimed it. Then he picked his foot up to scratch his ankle and Kate stuck her foot on it. He nudged her foot off. She nudged his foot off. He nudged harder. She kicked. Nudge. Kick. Nudge. Kick. All while staring straight ahead like they weren’t breaking all the rules.

I tsked. I threw the warning brows and whispered “Cut. It. Out.” Gabe shoved her leg, which made her yelp. The lady in front of us turned around. And I had a choice.

Smile and lie: “The children are on a special antibiotic that makes them twitch.”

Laugh sarcastically: “Only my kids would be possessed by the devil at Mass.”

Ignore her, take my children firmly in hand and bring the thunder, Mass or no Mass.

I lied.

Not really. But I wanted to. Instead, I leaned across all three kids, fixed Shea with a baleful stare and hissed “Your children are not behaving in Mass!”

There are lots of upsides here. I pass the buck. The kids know what’s up when my voice gets hissy. And with luck the lady in front of us thinks I’m the stepmother, not the birthmother, of the hooligans.

If I was a different kind of mom, I would have seized on the helicopter solution immediately, and instructed Father after Mass that he simply must remove those pesky rubber squares.

But since I’m me, my kids were treated to the scariest of all mom walks: the high-heeled beeline to the car, a frightened child dragging along in each hand. The one where no one talks and all you can hear is the staccato click-click-click of boot heels hitting the pavement.

Just another peaceful trip to Mass.

Tell me this happens to you. That your kids, who behave seven times out of ten, pick the worst places to shake it out. And in the midst of it you want to pause and shout to the crowd (why is there always a crowd?) “I swear I have taught them behave! We have rules and boundaries and consequences! We even enforce them regularly! I promise!”

And if it doesn’t happen to you, for the love of goodness, share the secret.

Organized and Stored

I love when the October magazines arrive in early September, all decorated for Fall and Halloween.

I hate when the January ones arrive in early December, talking about weight loss, resolutions, and reminding me that January is the month of all things Organized and Stored.

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To take my mind off the weight loss and resolutions, I decided to share my most outstanding and noteworthy Organized and Stored win.

I learned it from my mom.

Behold, the mismatched sock bin.

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I know. My mom is a genius. Really. And her bin even tops mine because she lives in a 1940s house that has an elevated water heater closet, and underneath that elevated shelf is the perfect little cupboard for storing the sock bin.

My bin just lives in my bedroom. When our room was upstairs in a two story house, the bin was a laundry basket. But now we have a trendy “main story master”, so I bought a nice basket.

Yes, just for the socks, because let me tell you something that HGTV won’t: your main story master must be clean at all times since guests can see into it from that other on point trend, the “great room”. Go ahead house hunters and dream of great rooms and open concepts. But just know there is no rest for the weary in a great room house. Your dirty dishes will always be showing.

But I digress.

As every person who does laundry knows, washing machines rescue battered socks and release them back into the wild after a thorough rest and rehab. No one is safe from the problem of the unmatched sock.

Two options.

A: Buy new socks. This is a cost prohibitive solution, especially if you have men and young boys in the home. Socks flee stinky feet. Once, I found one hiding in the floor vent, underneath the grate.

That sock was so desperate to get away it squeezed itself between the tiny little rows. I never would have known, except that it was winter, and every time the heater cycled on, I smelled dead squirrel.

Also, and I have personally witnessed this, just because you throw a whole pack and ONLY a whole pack of new socks into the washer, doesn’t mean you’re getting them all back.

B: Patience and a sock bin. Socks are like cats. They have nine lives and they’ll always come back. Socks are for feet and they need to be worn. Like a stressed out mama to a Mom’s Night Out, they turn up. The key is to remain vigilant, especially at times like cleaning out the garage, or on the last day of school. The strangest place I ever found a sock? Unpacking the Christmas decorations.

You better believe the match was sitting in the sock bin.

Once I month I dump that sucker out and match away. This is a usual haul.

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Although for the record and in a pinch, I would put the pink and purple sock on someone’s feet and send them to school. They are the same sock, after all. The color part is in the shoe. And my OCD is more obsession than compulsion.

So there it is, our first helpful hint for 2016. We know it’s not 2016 yet, but every basket ever made in the history of the world is currently on sale so if you need one, now’s the time.

Happy matching!

All I See Is Perfection ~ Guest Post by Jennifer

Andrew1 — Andrew just a few days ago, 2yrs and 4months

Hi everyone. I’m back again, writing for Full of Graces. I’ve wanted to write about this topic for a while now but haven’t been able to put my thoughts to paper. We have just put the boys to bed after an afternoon at a birthday party. Some of the older children at the party asked about that thing on Andrew’s chin. Jacob, my oldest, explained that it was a hemangioma and that it doesn’t hurt his little brother; he knows that kids usually are concerned that Andrew may have hurt himself. Nate, my husband, told the kids that it would be removed in two days. But that didn’t stop them from using words like “gross”, “disgusting”, and “ugly” to describe it. These were first grade kids. Jacob heard them and so did Andrew. I know they didn’t mean for their words to hurt but man, my mama heart is heavy tonight.

Andrew was born at 36 weeks and he did not have a hemangioma at birth. By the time he was released from the NICU we noticed a tiny mark on his chin, almost like a bruise, which we assumed was from the tape on his face that held various tubes in place during his hospital stay. But it never went away and instead started growing. We now know that hemangiomas are common amongst preemies.

Initially, we were told that the hemangioma would eventually lighten in color and begin to recede. Yet, it has not done so and after several visits with a pediatric dermatologist we were told that it had mushroomed with fatty tissue beneath the blood vessels; it would be unlikely for it to go away. The pediatric plastic surgeon we were referred to recommended removing the hemangioma sooner than later in order to allow the surgical scar to heal as much as possible before Andrew starts school. We have been praying about this hemangioma since Andrew was a newborn and we feel that putting him through surgery to remove it is the right choice.

Andrew3 — Andrew at one year old (Photo credit: Brianna Kiefer Photography)

Having a child with a hemangioma in a very visible place on his face has been an interesting experience. Overall, it has not been too bad. Little kids are curious and usually just want to know if Andrew has had a boo-boo or if it hurts him. Parents of children with hemangiomas have stopped me, usually at Disneyland, to share their child’s hemangioma story. They have always been positive interactions meant to encourage me in that it would go away eventually and I appreciate that. However, we’ve also had enough interactions where older children say something negative about my baby’s beautiful face. As much as I have hated those negative occasions, I also wish the positive experiences had not happened either. It’s not that I wish people would pretend the hemangioma doesn’t exist, I just wish it weren’t the first thing that people notice about Andrew. He was the sweetest, chunkiest baby and is now the most entertaining, happy little boy; there is so much more to him than the hemangioma on his chin.

Andrew can identify his hemangioma just like he identifies his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, etc. I wonder if he realizes that no one else has one. I will say this experience had been a good teaching opportunity even if it isn’t one that I asked for. Jacob and I have had several conversations about why people always notice Andrew’s hemangioma and sometimes aren’t nice about it. He and I have prayed for the hemangioma to go away and for those that have been unkind. Andrew doesn’t talk much but someday I know I will teach him about how to, and how not to, approach someone who is different. I know that many of my friends are having these conversations with their children too. If you haven’t talked to your child about using kind words, please do. The old adage “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is simply not true. Words hurt the most.

Unfortunately kids can be mean and we don’t want Andrew to be hurt by other people’s words about it. So we are going ahead with plastic surgery on Tuesday, December 15^th. We’ve been told that the procedure will last 30-45minutes; Nate, my doctor husband, says that’s not long at all but I am sure those minutes will feel much longer. Andrew is expected to bounce back quickly because he is young but we have been warned that the scar may be very red for up to a year. That means it should be fading around when he starts pre-school. I am praying that it does fade by then but that if it doesn’t, that the children in his class are kind.

Please join me in praying for a successful surgery, quick recovery, and minimal scaring. Thank you.

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