Boundary Lines

Pook is mad at me. She’s standing in the corner sniffling and crying and staring out the window refusing to look at me. If she catches me looking at her, she’ll shout NO! and turn back around with a wail. This has been going on for a good twenty minutes now, because I am a super mean mom who won’t allow her to throw toys. Who are you, woman, to tell ME how to act? HOW DARE YOU!

I am not afraid in the slightest of a good old-fashioned parenting standoff. I don’t lose battles with my children. I can out-stubborn most anyone, but when it comes to my kids I refuse to lose because losing means teaching them that I don’t mean what I say and that bad behavior is ok if you just keep at it long enough. Both of those are hard passes for me. I make a whole litany of parenting mistakes on the daily, but I absolutely refuse to raise jerks. Little jerks become big jerks, and heaven knows the world has enough big jerks already.

Boundaries are a simplistic concept for little kids. Everything is really black and white – don’t touch the hot thing, coins don’t belong in your mouth, etc. But then we get older and boundaries become about emotions and things get so wonky. We’re working through some boundary issues with Bean right now, and as always, working through issues with my kids always shines a spotlight on my own opportunities for growth. Bean takes on responsibility for other people’s choices because she’s seen me do it for eleven years. I need to provide a better example.

I am very much a peacemaker by nature. Fighting and anger make me so anxious that my lifelong approach has been to placate and appease. Even if I’m not one of the parties involved in the argument, even if I haven’t done anything wrong. Make peace. Keep everyone happy. Be everything for everyone. And this is possible for a while, sure. But it’s not sustainable on the long-term because eventually you feed everyone else your food and starve yourself to death. You also end up accomplishing the exact opposite of your goal, because all you’re really doing is teaching the people in your life that you don’t really mean what you say and that bad behavior is ok if you just keep at it long enough. It’s really just the grown-up version of Pook in the corner.

Grown-up standoffs are a lot scarier, though. I know I’m gonna prevail with Pook, but I cannot make another adult choose how to behave. I can’t give attitude consequences to someone who isn’t my child. So there’s no real guarantee of things getting better, except for my ability to stand up for myself. Which is more of a threat than a guarantee if you’re a peacemaker and a fixer. It’s terrifying.

Here is today’s version of the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the ability to speak the truth in love, the willingness to take responsibility for my own behavior and the wisdom to know when to keep my mouth shut. And PS: the ability to know how to avoid these situations in the first place wouldn’t go awry, either. :shrug: