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« Ha! | Main | In solidarity with the strikers today »
Battle Fatigue.
April 30, 2006
At some point, several months ago, Monk took to referring to me as "the old battle ax." Boy, do I ever feel that one today. It was a particularly difficult day that included as it's central focal point, a NINE FUCKING HOUR standoff with one Mr. Monk. About his chores. Specifically one chore. Cleaning his room.
Folks, this is where all of that egalitarian parenting crap breaks down. Anyone can talk a good game about taking children seriously or being respectful or what have you...but really in my mind when it comes to enforcing household participation, I don't fuck around. I just don't have time to be the person who does everything around here. And I don't think it's good for my kids (or, really anyone's kids...but you raise yours the way you want to) to just assume that they can get away without doing what is expected of them. I do listen to them when they have issues or complaints to raise, but I do NOT negotiate once an assignment has been given. If it is a reasonable request, I expect reasonable compliance. That's all there is to it.
So, for nine hours today, I had to face a child who absolutely refused to do 30 minutes worth of work, and was willing to lose all manner of privileges to prove some point that I think was totally lost in the shuffle. I STILL don't even know what his point was, other than he was hell-bent on defying me and gaining steam throughout the day.
My early strategies were simple and positive. "When you are done tidying your room," I said, "I can set up the TV and game cube in there." He wasn't falling for it, or the other 3-4 positive consequences. Nor did he particularly give a shit about the negative consequences. It was a full-on stand down. And my stubborn freaking child was NOT budging.
I was determined, too. I was determined to not yell. I was determined to not "kitchen sink" him (which is an unfortunate parenting strategy that involves reeling off a list of really abstract consequences. In my darker parenting moments, these have included such marginal threats as "I am going to burn every last one of your Goosebumps books" to "You will NEVER PLAY AGAIN." - Granted, that last one is usually shrieked humorously a la Burger Meister Meisterburger from the Rankin Bass Year Without a Santa Claus cartoon, but there have been times that it has been tinged with more hopeful truth than I care to admit. Even though I just admitted it.) and I did not do either of those things.
I did, however, spend all day inwardly bemoaning my predicament, questioning myself, feeling like the worst parent on the face of the planet - not to mention the most hypocritical anarchist! Did my mom have such crises of parenting? Did she ever spend an entire day questioning whether her tactics were going to damage her child for life? At one point, I called her and asked her. "No." was her short answer. The long answer was that she had seven children, and she just didn't have time to think about her parenting. Hm.
Late in the battle, I changed tactics. After Monk escaped confinement and decided to entertain himself by tormentnig his brother yet again, I sent him to The Room Without Books. Monk told me I could never break him! That he didn't care if he never played a computer game again or ever EVER got any allowance, he was NEVER going to clean his room! NEVER.
"In fact," said my young upstart, "I'm ON STRIKE."
Damn me for talking about the general strike on May Day earlier in the afternoon!
"OK, Monk." I said, in my explaining voice. "A strike is often a very noble thing...and I can respect you taking a noble stand. However, people who go on strike have to face consequences for doing so, and they need to be very sure that they are striking for a worthy purpose." And then I paused, and added. "I'm not so sure this is a noble thing to strike about."
I skipped the speech about arbitration. I figure there will be more general strikes from Monk in the future (maude help us all) and I can slowly mete out the lessons about labor negotiations and whatnot through his teen years.
Frustrated as I was, I called all of my support people that I could think of to avoid blowing my top with this kiddo - and, more importantly, to avoid giving in. I hate being stubborn like this...but worse than the idea that I spent an entire day battling with my son over 30 minutes worth of chores is the idea that I would battle with my son over 30 minutes of chores only to give in and do them for him. I had two things that were keeping me from bowing to the pressure. First, Monk has told me before that I too frequently give in rather than sticking to it and making the kids face the consequences of their actions. He has said that he actually doesn't respect it all that much when I do that, and that it confuses him. Second, I had spent way too much time the night before reading the blog of some dude who killed a little girl in his apartment complex and was all set to EAT HER and, as ridiculous as it sounds (some of you parents out there will get this) all day in the back of my mind was this idea that "Hell no, my kid is not going to grow up to be a freaking serial killer, and if I give him this battle, he's surely going to end up on a slow slide to sociopathy."
So, the important thing was to stay insistent, but stay as calm as possible. And I did.
Until NINE HOURS LATER. My darling son emerged. I had told him earlier in the day, when I was still in the "helpful suggestion" phase, that perhaps it would be a good idea to ask his little brother for help. So, as I sat here trying to keep myself from blowing my top by playing a mindless flash game over and over and over again, Monk entered his room and said, ever so politely, to Coley "Cole, if you help me clean my room...mom will give us computer time tomorrow."
Coley, somewhat distracted by his play, just said "OK." Simple as that.
Monk then approached me "Mom...is it OK if I PROMISE to clean the room tomorrow after I feed the pets and before I have breakfast."
My heart leapt, however..."Honey, we have an appointment in the morning. That's not going to work."
Monk accepted this somewhat downheartedly, but...still...he seemed to be coming around.
"I'll tell you what," I told him. "If you go take a shower, I will tell Coley that when you are out of the shower, it will be time to clean up and get ready for bed."
Monk lit up. "OK!"
Then he did something super amazing. He went back into the room and told his baby brother "Listen, it's not fair for me to get help from you for nothing...so if you help me, I will let you have MY computer time tomorrow."
Coley agreed to this, and Monk came back into my room, beaming. I have to admit, I was beaming, too. "I'm glad you made the right choice, Monkeyman. For a minute there...I thought you were going to make the wrong choice."
"For a MINUTE?" Monk said. "Maybe I should start this thing all over again!"
I chuckled, somewhat fearfully. "Um...no no no no! OK! For NINE HOURS THERE...I thought you were going to make the wrong choice."
Both of us sort of laughed uncomfortably...I guess we were both a little battle weary.
Damn, this parenting shit is hard!
When all was said and done and the room was passably tidy, I told Monk "You know...that stubbornness will serve a purpose someday, but I just wish you wouldn't practice it so much on your allies. I wish you would reserve it for your enemies."
Monk said "Yeah! Like when I'm protesting!"
"Yeah...something like that."
Woe unto the cop who tries to drag that kiddo off to the paddy wagon. Let me tell you.
Don't you wish you could be a parent, too?
And, with that, I'm totally going to sleep.
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Comments
they test and they test! i think you both won - he wanted you to resist, and you did. you wanted his room cleaned, and voilà ! respect all around (and exhaustion and frustration and...! yeah.).
Citizens usually consider things arranged in large scale, simple patterns as from a pyramidal hierarchy to be orderly. Hiding, not solving problems, and imposing patterns over unnaturally large areas substitutes the image of regimentation in the place of any reality of peace. Citizens consider this to be more important than small scale needs that make the hierarchical pattern irrelevant. But their notion of order contradicts itself. Those that reject all forms of authority and domination must come up with a different idea of "clean" and picked up.
Consider what this means for a room. The place is literally organized chaos if necessities disappear into an imposing, inhuman and immovable lattice of neat, clean, plain, identical, and excessively, luxuriously sleek, modern drawer machines. The organizers, in both senses of the word, and the occupants waste needed time imposing one's own idea of how a room should look like, even if this idea is boss-like in its unavoidable isolation from the knowledge contained in the bottom rank. Ultimately the room's contents will be torn from their eclectic efficiency and harvested into a chaotic mass inside boxes. The chaotic mass will be indistinguishable in its cubic large scale structure and the irregularity of each cell from prisons and factory farms.
Of course, seeing as how roomcleaningisticism and the pickup (capitalism and the state) are wrong, how then would an anarchist children's room look like? Well, frankly the answer is it doesn't matter because anarchism does not make the mistake of assuming that a particular structure will automatically create a correct way that people organize their things. Citizens say that the breakdown of government leads to the "absolute freedom" to do anything without consequence, minus the freedom to be left alone. Stereotypical chaos is fluid and individual, but is still quite different from anarchy and chaos has an intuitive compatibility with and an inherent tendency towards the structure of large scale regimentation.