“You’re not grumpy about me, you’re grumpy about your car,” he stated when I was short with him moments after failing to push-start my car down the hill, having to abandon it at the bottom of the neighbourhood. I had searched everywhere for my car key so I could get him to school and discovered it – as I often do – in the ignition. Only this time it was different … the key was halfway on. My luck never seems to run out when it comes to my car always waiting there in the morning with the key begging someone to steal it, but this morning I sensed my luck was not going to get the car to start as I remembered how, while I was washing my car, my child had been listening to the radio while imagining he was his favourite new TV personality, The Stig. After pushing it halfway around the neighbourhood, over two very tricky speed humps and down two monstrous hills – I know because I usually run up them – I gave up and marched my child along the road to school.
But he never lets me get away with taking my frustration out on him. He always reminds me how important it is to separate my mood from his behaviour, like the time he sensed my mood and told me, “I don’t want to talk about this now,” knowing the outcome would change if he waited until I was in a better mood.
I think the most tortuous path one takes as a parent must be the undoing of injustices in your own childhood, not knowing if you’re only creating a new path to perpetuate the cycle.
He stands up to me, which is a great start as it is something I am only now learning to do with my own parents. And speaking of my own parents, I have spent a month with them and he stood up to them as well. When my mother told him to eat his food he told her, “I will eat it when I am ready.” When she told him to look at the pretty smoke coming out of a factory chimney he said, “It is not pretty smoke, it is bad for the environment.” When my father was getting impatient he said, “Just calm down poppop, it will be done when it is done.” When my mother threatened to smack him if he did something naughty he told her he’d smack her back if she did. He is called cheeky, he is sometimes called rude, but I let it slide because I always took exactly what was given to me and it seems that’s a hard habit to break.
