My Favorite Word

My first word as a baby was “No.” Eventually, I learned more and longer words, and amused adults with my sesquipedalian vocabulary. Now that I’m a parent, “no” is once again my favorite word. I know many parents have written about the empowerment that comes with saying “Yes,” and I’m not disagreeing with the notion that parents should let their kids do wild n’ crazy stuff once in a while rather than automatically shut down the kid’s request. But in my quest to raise semi-civilized human beings, there are plenty of reasons I say no throughout the day:

1. Safety: Obvious, right? We would prefer our kids survive to adulthood, preferably with all limbs and organs intact. “No, you may not climb onto the roof of your playset. No, you may not dash out into the traffic-laden road.” And yet, even here there’s room for disagreement; I have been criticized more than once for allowing my kids to do something that I deem reasonable but that others consider unacceptably dangerous, while others think I’m mollycoddling my offspring.

2. Courtesy: I hope for my children to grow up to be moral, loving, brilliant, successful, well-adjusted people. Failing that, “semi-civilized” (see above) would be nice. “No, you may not poke your sister in the eye. No, you may not ride your younger brother; look, he’s crying and struggling to escape. No, you may not steal Daddy’s food. No, you may not go visit the diners at the next table. No, you may not lick your uncle.” I’m probably stifling their unique, golden personalities every time I forbid them to strip down nude and pee in the driveway, but how else am I going to turn them into soulless automatons that do whatever The Man tells them to do?

3. Logistics: A fancy word for “I really don’t want to deal with the hassle of saying ‘yes’ to that request.” This is a more selfish reason for saying “no” than the two listed above; letting the kiddos “help” me bake is a fun activity that builds their kitchen skills, confidence, and ability to follow directions while spending quality time with me, but sometimes I just can’t face the mountains of flour that I know will be spilled all over the floor, or the egg bits that I will be fishing out of the stove crevices. “No, you may not paint right now. No, you may not get all 2,356 of your stuffed animals out of the cupboard, because I know who’ll wind up putting them away.” Selfish reasons for saying “no” may serve a parenting purpose, too; my kids are incredibly fortunate and lack nothing, and it’s important that they realize that sometimes they don’t get what they want. (You may insert your own snide comment about entitled Millennials, although many of you reading will be in that unfairly-maligned generation.)

4. Precedent: Every parent knows how long a memory a child can have when it comes to events that they would like to see repeated. The reason nearly all parenting advice sites harp on consistency, consistency, consistency, is that kids will remember FOREVER that one time you said, oh, heck with it, you can jump on the bed, just make sure you don’t break something; just this one time probably won’t kill the springs. And if you offer treats on a given occasion, prepare for your children to cite said offering in the manner of a lawyer digging up judicial decisions from 150 years ago. “No, you can’t have ice cream while we’re at the pool. No, we’re not buying doughnuts at the grocery store. No, you can’t have a new ball from the drugstore.” Sometimes it gives me a great deal of pleasure to buy ice cream at the pool, I’m always up for doughnuts, and the kids love cheap, crappy plastic balls, but I want to limit how much clamoring for treats my children will aim at me each and every time we go somewhere. And if I’m really too exhausted to enforce a rule that I know I ought to be enforcing…well, I can always pretend that I didn’t see them jumping on the bed, because I TOTALLY WOULD HAVE put a stop to that nonsense if only I’d been aware of it.

5. Cruelty. I feed off the tears of disappointed infants. Not really, but I’m sure my kids think so at times. Look, dear ones, one of these days you might have messy little savages of your own to cherish, and when you do, I think you’ll appreciate the magical powers of that delightful word, “No.”

Someday I’ll Have Another Job

Someday I’ll have another job.

Right now I’m a stay-at-home-mom. Most of the time, I love it, and whenever I assess my current position in life I’m entirely happy and satisfied to be able to stay with my sweet babies. There are moments that really, really suck, of course, as with any job, but generally this SAHM thing is a pretty good gig.

But I’m aware that my job comes with a mandatory retirement date. My children won’t be babies forever. My oldest is not yet 3 and my youngest is cooking inside of me, so I’m a few years away from being an empty nester, but it will happen one day that when someone asks me “What do you do?” my answer will not be “Stay at home with the kids.”

This is good. I am more than Mommy. I like to cook, read, write, hike, volunteer, play piano (badly), play chess (really badly), and draw (don’t ask how badly). It is easy for some of that identity to get lost in the day-to-day wiping of bottoms and counters, and I spend a lot of time thinking about my children and childrearing in general even when I’m not actually parenting the little critters. (I am writing this post on my “night off,” while my husband takes the kiddos to the pool. Bless him.) I do not forget that it would help no one to make my children my life; someday, God willing, they’ll grow up to be independent adults who give their parents an occasional call as they live their busy lives.

The difficulty is that “Mom” is a dual identity. One part of it is indelible, a profound change that occurred when I saw my first positive pregnancy test. If some terrible tragedy occurred and all my children were lost, I would still be a mother until I died. If all of my pregnancies had ended in early miscarriage, I would still be a mother. It is part of who I am now, as unchangeable as my DNA, and I think all of you mothers reading this need no further explanation to understand just what I mean.

But the other part is that of a woman whose job it is to keep her small children alive and teach them the rudiments of competency and decency. This is not unique to SAHMs; working parents are also tasked with this same demanding career. It swallows up time, money, patience; it is rewarding, but hard. It is this job that will someday come to an end, as adult children are expected to take responsibility for their own lives. Oh, my mother nags me to wear sunscreen still, and I’m sure I’ll offer my own kids lots of unsolicited, shall we say, advice; but Mom knows and I know that when little birdie has flown from the parental nest she’ll make her own decisions and mistakes.

I can’t predict the future. Perhaps circumstances or my own inclinations will lead me back to the paid workforce earlier than I think they will; perhaps not. Maybe I’ll wind up doing lots of volunteer work, or caretaking for another relative. I don’t know what or where I’ll be in 20 years. But I know that, although I’ll always be “Mom,” it will only be a part of my identity. It won’t be my career.

Someday I’ll have another job. In the meantime, I’ll kick back and listen to a nice concerto and eat some candy that I don’t have to share with anyone. I go back on the clock in roughly an hour.

Synonyms for “Mother”

Moth·er: Female parent. One who has given birth to, adopted, or fostered another child; one who nurtures and cares for a child. Synonyms:

Mom, Mommy, Ma, Mama, Momma;

Kleenex, paper towel, napkin, wet wipe;

Chauffeur, baby carrier, crane;

Chair, bed, cradle, rocker, blanket, pillow;

Trampoline, rocking horse, mule;

Chef, short-order cook, vending machine, pacifier;

Personal buyer, personal stylist, groomer;

First responder, nurse, doctor;

White-noise machine, conversationalist, screamer;

Coffee-drinker, wine-drinker, chocolate consumer;

Social director, playmate, diplomat, therapist;

The meanest person ever;

(With “Father”) The best-loved person in the world.