Casualness

I was making dinner when I heard Jacob yell, "Mom, Joshua just stood on the footstool and jumped over the loveseat!" Our living room is mixed up right now, with the footstool hiding behind the loveseat instead of in front of it to make room for the Christmas tree. This makes jumping over the loveseat from behind even more tempting than usual. It's pretty darn cute when Anna climbs up on the footstool and then dives over the back of the couch. It is dangerous when big boys do it. And I don't mean dangerous to them so much as dangerous to the couch, not to mention the Christmas tree! So my reply, with a sigh, was "Josh, please don't jump over the couch." I guess I should get them in trouble or make a big deal when they do this if I want the behavior to stop. Any seasoned parent knows that you have to give some kind of consequence that is more painful than the fun of breaking the rule. The problem is that most seasoned parents are often too tired to follow up with consequences! Anyway, this parent is too tired tonight!

So what is the deal? We are beaten down when they are rowdy, energetic children, and then, to really suck the life out of parents, there is early morning seminary when they are teenagers. It almost seems like there is a conspiracy! I ask myself, is there purpose in the wearing out of parents? And yet, maybe there is. Maybe, by the time they are teenagers, we need to be so mellow that we only get upset about the really important things because that's all we have the energy for. We have to pick our battles because the rest of the time we are sagging on the sidelines watching as, with unlimited energy, they use this moral agency they've been given to make some real life choices. And it's not just whether or not to jump over the couch but whether or not to do things that will really affect their lives. I guess they are past the lecture stage and into the life lab session--how to choose the right. I'm not saying that we give up on parenting, just that we are forced to learn the difference between the things that matter and the things that don't.

Phyllis McGinley calls this casualness. She said, "God knows a mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul. But...I praise casualness. It seems to me the rarest of virtues. It's useful enough when they are small. It is important to the point of necessity when they are adolescents."