Parenting; or Fumbling Around in the Dark Trying Not to Break Things
Hello, my wee piece of the internet. We're all fine. It's sunny and warm here today. We took the guinea pigs outside, and they cowered in terror, too afraid to do more than nibble tentatively at some of the delicious fresh grass (which they will savagely devour if we tear it off and bring it inside and feed it to them in their cage). I'm afraid the guinea pigs are too perfect a metaphor for our family. We should have gotten a less fear-based sort of pet.
Things go on. Skipper is currently doing occasional rollerskating lessons, because she "likes the gliding part." She is finding third grade very stressful. She has a teacher who is fairly harsh and sarcastic, and Skipper lives in terror (see above) of the teacher yelling at her. It doesn't actually ever happen, but she's afraid ALL THE TIME (see above).
Duchess and I got in an unpleasant argument on Friday night. I told her she was signed up for a beginner rowing class in the morning and she freaked out. (Back story: this is a sport I have long thought would be perfect for Duchess. It's intensely team-oriented, it has a lot of rules, you don't have to be super-humanly athletic to succeed, and it takes place on the water. She has expressed interest in the past, but when I mentioned it recently, she was tepid on the idea. I decided to just barge ahead and sign her up and not mention it till the last minute, because she's usually pretty pliant.) She was really mad, and made some excellent points about autonomy and her right to make her own choices. Her excellent points, however, were embedded in a petulant and bratty tantrum, and I responded like a jerk.
We got over it, because Duchess is a forgiving person and I apologized for railroading her autonomy. She's right that she should be able to make her own choices. To a point. And I need to cede that, to a point. But I said that she should go row unless she had a really good reason not to - she was interested in it, and a sunny spring morning is a good way to try rowing out.
She sulked all morning, sulked and whined all the way to the class, and told me that she hates me (semi-joking) when I left her at the class. When I picked her up, I was resigned to a wave of righteous petulance, and resigned to the fact that I would deserve it. As we walked away from the "boathouse"(actually warehouse) where they keep the gear, she turned to me and said with a faux-angry expression "I HATE that you were right," and then she beamed her full-on, all-in Duchess grin. She loved it, for all the reasons I had listed off to her. I thanked her for being generous enough to allow herself to enjoy it, in spite of her determination to punish me. I would like to think that I have learned a lesson and will be more respectful of her autonomy in the future, but I'm not sure that I have.
Things go on. Skipper is currently doing occasional rollerskating lessons, because she "likes the gliding part." She is finding third grade very stressful. She has a teacher who is fairly harsh and sarcastic, and Skipper lives in terror (see above) of the teacher yelling at her. It doesn't actually ever happen, but she's afraid ALL THE TIME (see above).
Duchess and I got in an unpleasant argument on Friday night. I told her she was signed up for a beginner rowing class in the morning and she freaked out. (Back story: this is a sport I have long thought would be perfect for Duchess. It's intensely team-oriented, it has a lot of rules, you don't have to be super-humanly athletic to succeed, and it takes place on the water. She has expressed interest in the past, but when I mentioned it recently, she was tepid on the idea. I decided to just barge ahead and sign her up and not mention it till the last minute, because she's usually pretty pliant.) She was really mad, and made some excellent points about autonomy and her right to make her own choices. Her excellent points, however, were embedded in a petulant and bratty tantrum, and I responded like a jerk.
We got over it, because Duchess is a forgiving person and I apologized for railroading her autonomy. She's right that she should be able to make her own choices. To a point. And I need to cede that, to a point. But I said that she should go row unless she had a really good reason not to - she was interested in it, and a sunny spring morning is a good way to try rowing out.
She sulked all morning, sulked and whined all the way to the class, and told me that she hates me (semi-joking) when I left her at the class. When I picked her up, I was resigned to a wave of righteous petulance, and resigned to the fact that I would deserve it. As we walked away from the "boathouse"(actually warehouse) where they keep the gear, she turned to me and said with a faux-angry expression "I HATE that you were right," and then she beamed her full-on, all-in Duchess grin. She loved it, for all the reasons I had listed off to her. I thanked her for being generous enough to allow herself to enjoy it, in spite of her determination to punish me. I would like to think that I have learned a lesson and will be more respectful of her autonomy in the future, but I'm not sure that I have.
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