This feels like a really stupid thing to write about, but it's just a product of the wild adventures my mom-brain goes on every second of the day. Bear with me here. You only have to read about a portion of it all, I have to live in this mind!! All joking aside, something has really been bothering me lately. I have an almost 2 year old son and he is such a little angel most of the time. Curly blond hair, shiny hazel eyes, outgoing personality. All of this comes with a little streak of defiance that his father and I have been seeing more of lately. I know that he is coming up on those "terrible twos" we all love, and we are definitely trying to teach him to be nice, to not pull his sister's hair or step on her (he's pretty ruthless to her, I must say), to not hit at all, to use his manners when he wants or receives something.... And this is where I am hitting a little wall. He doesn't want to say "please" when I ask him to. He'll say "Ba-ba" and "Mo" ("Drink" & "More") but when I say, "Can you say please, please?" he replies with a firm shake of the head and says "Mo" (which also means "no"). I tried to ignore it at first because I didn't want to push him too hard and make him resent saying it. I want him to say it because he wants to be a good little boy and because he genuinely appreciates anything he receives, whether that be a drink from me or a gift from a friend at his birthday party 5 years down the road. He kept refusing to say it, however, and while I respect his independence and individuality, I also don't want him to grow up to be a shitty person because I didn't instill in him good values. That includes teaching him manners. I started refusing to get him more milk this morning when he said "no" to saying "please". I said, "Well, I'm not going to get you more milk until you say please." And I turned away from him while he whined a little bit and kept eating my scrambled eggs (there was a freaking shell in my eggs, too, which I subsequently crunched into during this little escapade.... yum) and he got my attention, looking at me with a very defeated look and mumbled, "Pees?". I rubbed his shoulder and said, "That's a good little boy" (somewhere along the line I started talking to my kids like I'm June Cleaver?? Don't ask me why.) I got up and refilled his milk sippy cup and gave it to him. I said, "Thank you for using your manners" with a smile and he still seemed a little subdued. It's been bothering me ever since it happened and I'm wondering if I am crushing his independent spirit a little each time I make him submit to me. Because that's what I feel like I'm doing when it comes down to the bottom line. I'm saying, "I'm not going to do this for you until you say what I'm forcing you to say." How shitty is that? I know it's my job to teach him these things so that he can function as an adult in society, but all we ever talk about is how fucked up society really is. The media, the government, as an adult I've grown to distrust both. And your whole life you are taught to submit. To your parents, to your partner, to your boss.... Is the way I'm raising my kids just me falling into line, the way they want me to? Am I just preparing my kids for a life of submission as well? You can say that we should teach our kids these things, but how will that ever help change such a fucked-up society? Shouldn't we be teaching our children to think for themselves? To challenge authority because authority usually doesn't have their best interests at heart anyway? Like I said, maybe I'm totally over-thinking this but the look on his little face. You weren't there to see it, but I don't want to have to be the one to extinguish my fiery child's amazing spirit and uniqueness. Yes, I am still going to request that he use his manners, I am going to continue asking him to say "please" and "thank you", but I don't think I'll be forcing him to say them. It just feels wrong.
