How’s the political world treating you these days? Do you feel as though the “other side” is working with a completely different set of facts? Do you feel as though “they” have constructed their own reality and will do whatever it takes to protect it? Do they make no sense and refuse to acknowledge clear evidence that you are correct and they are idiots? Welcome to parenting.
Yesterday, Edward told me two important pieces of advice he had learned from a song in school.
1) Don’t brush your teeth too long.
2) Always turn the water off when you shower.
These helpful tips will conserve water and save the planet. Although I wondered if he had gotten them backwards. He assured me that this was not the case. His school 100% told him not to shower with the water on. And also to brush his teeth as quickly as possible. Nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.
This morning I took him to school and there was an assembly. He sat down with the other 1st graders as an older class got up and sang a song about “going green.” It included the tips that you should take shorter showers, and turn the water off when you brush your teeth. There. Incontrovertible evidence. Right? Nope. They must have changed the song since yesterday. Yeah, seriously. They must have changed the song.
I told Ruby something last night, and ten minutes later she swore that I had said something completely different, and totally ridiculous. What makes more sense? That I told you that you only had 5 minutes to eat dinner? Or that I said dinner was in 5 minutes? But logic will not prevail. That my children think so little of me as to assume that I say the most ridiculous things possible, rather than admit that they might have misheard me, is extremely, well, genetic I guess. I am guilty of that myself.
So how do we parent in a world where the “other side” will not believe anything we say? How do we parent when facts are disregarded and reason is missing? How do we get the children to see that we are right? Easy. We just make them. We are the parents, and our homes are not democracies. Ha ha ha ha HA! Now if only I could convince my newsfeed of the same thing…