When I was a young lassie, my mother handled my absolutely horrid adolescent behavior by, as I used to call it, “freaking out” (Hi, Mom; I love you). As a young pre-teen, I determined that this was not an effective method for handling wayward youth, and decided then and there that I would not behave in such a manner with my children. Instead, I have taken to engaging in a behavior that I have no doubt they eventually will find as frustrating as I found my mother’s emotional outbursts: I remain unmoved. Examples:
Dina: You’re a bad mommy.
Me: (in an even and slightly pleasant tone) Wow, Dina, that’s the first time you’ve said anything like that to me. You’re really growing up.
Bassie: You’re mean; clean my glasses.
Me: (matter-of-factly) No, I don’t clean glasses; I’m mean.
Bassie: But you have to clean my glasses.
Me: (gently, but with authority) Look, if you tell me ‘I’m mean’ enough, I start to believe it, and then I’ll start to behave in a manner that lives up to it.
Bassie: Okay, you’re not mean.
For now the effect is confusion or aquiescence. But I only have a few years before they’ve reached their threshhold, and then it’ll be all “Shut up! Stop it! That’s not funny! No, really, I really hate you!” But I’ve determined that, since there’s no way to keep your kids from resenting you, the best you can do is handle those moments in a manner that keeps you as sane and emotionally undamaged as possible (I mean, without completely emotionally withdrawing; although I can always hold that out as an emergency measure…)
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