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What Parenting Books Can't Teach
The Politics of Pants
by Sherry Antonetti in Family on Thursday, July 15, 2010 6:00 AM
Today, my 5-year-old son had a wardrobe problem. Specifically, he was very angry with his pants.
“They’re too long on the inside.” he whined as I pointed out that they were 1) clean 2) his size and 3) relatively new.
When he suspected I wasn’t really moved by his complaint, he added, “They hurt me on my leg and pointed to a discreet place on his shins and they’re itchy and they don’t work.”
Now I am working on not allowing the practical gritch to marshal through issues like this using emotional brute force to make said child get dressed so I had to try a different way than barking, “Just put the things on!” which I admit, was my first, second and frankly third and fourth thought when considering options.
Reminding myself that this person does not care that I think his problem is completely irrational and unreasonable, and that not seeing that they think this is insurmountable makes ME the irrational and unreasonable one in the scenario, I told him to go to the bathroom and wait. A quick survey of the laundry indicated there wasn’t a Miss Congeniality version of uniform attire waiting and ready to take the dethroned pants’ place. I turned the pants inside out to see if there was in fact a reasonable reason for the pants being so unsuitable.
Alas, there was no discernable reason that an adult could fathom why these clothes were so unacceptable today as versus last week when they were just pants.
Racking my brain for alternatives, I could 1) bluff and say this is a different pair of pants that I just got out of the laundry basket and hope he bought it 2) insist on putting them on and pay the emotional consequence cost of having a miserable son cry about his mean mommy forcing him to get dressed or 3) somehow make the sales pitch of my life to get the wearer and the said navy slacks reunited and in accord with one another.
Taking a deep breath because I knew option 1 wouldn’t work since he had already done a search for an alternative pair, and because option 2 was really really tempting; I knocked on the door.
“I want to talk to you.” I said.
His eyes were a little wet from the struggle of that morning already.
“Can we try them on so I can see what’s wrong?” I pleaded. The seconds went by and I waited. Like hooking a fish, if you pull up too quickly, you lose. He nodded and I left the room.
Five seconds later, there was a knock and my heart sank.
“Can you come in Mom?” he asked. This was it, he had changed his mind and I was going to have to do a grafting of those darn things onto my kid’s legs. I opened the door and there he stood, dressed.
“Oh!” I beamed, “You look nice!”
He flowered into a smile.
“Yeah, I thought these pants were too big.”
“But it turns out you grew a bit bigger.” I added hastily.
“Yes, it must be because I’m almost six.” he explained.
“That must be it.” I nodded.
“It’s funny,” he added. “I’ve tried these pants on 1000 times and they’ve never fit.”
Deciding not to correct him on his memory, I kissed his cheek and said, “Guess you need to try 1,001 times.”
Going down the stairs, I mused over what all had happened in the span of ten minutes. 1) I’d kept my resolution 2) He’d gotten dressed and 3) We’d experienced a touch of wisdom that seemed likely to stick if not for him, for me.
Feeling very satisfied, I started making lunches. But the battle of virtue over original sin within the heart goes on undeterred. When one opportunity for suffering and sin has instead become a moment for grace, a new opportunity must be presented.
“Mommmmmm? I can’t find any socks.”
— Sherry Antonetti is a fortunate spouse, freelance writer and a full time mother to nine sources of inspiration, laughs, and a lot of laundry.
Comments
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Posted by Angela on Thursday, Jul 15, 2010 10:28 AM (EDT):
That was a beautiful way of solving the problem!
However, I have found certain type of parenting books to be really helpful, and it bothers me to see them, as a genre, dismissed.
There are two type of parenting books. One type tells us how to manipulate our children’s behaviors. (I put Jaems Another tells us how to understand our children. The Ames and Ilg (“Your One-Year-Old”, “Your Two-Year-Old”, etc.) series are the second type, and those ar the type I find helpful.
It was from Ames and Ilg that I learned to step into the imaginary world of my preschoolers. If Sally is pretending to be a dog, and I want her to hold my hand to cross the street, it’s best to ask her to hand me her “paw”. I learned that directly from Ames and Ilg. My 14 yr old feels like she has an “imaginary audience” watching her all the time, as I learned from David Elkind’s writing. That is why she spends so much time perfecting her appearance. If I respect that perspective, and allow here the space to make herself presentable to the audience she thinks is watching her, she will grow beyond this stage with ease.
Parenting books cannot help us to know each individual child. That requires spending time with him/her. Parenting books will not address every single situation that occurs in life (such as the pants situation). However, I do not like to see them dismissed, because the type of prenting bookw hich teaches us about how children develop actually can teach us something.
We do not have to rely on either our intuiton and experience, *or* parenting books. We can use both.
Angela, I did not view your comments as dismissive. The title was a bit of tongue in cheek.
I would say that even with 9, I flip through “Your Baby and Child from 0 to 5” for tips on various things and reminders of things I either blip over or have forgotten.
For the record, any resource that a mom finds restorative, helpful, insightful, pragmatic or which helps side step a problem, is a good thing. What I do know is while these books are filled with tips for bed time, potty training, eating, growth and development, activities and recipies, they rarely acknowledge the gulf between adult sensibilities and child sensibilities and how sometimes these two worlds collide in unexpected and unanticipated ways.
I really enjoyed this post! I linked to it on my weekly roundup to share with my readers, too. Thanks!
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