Our children have a way of holding up big, shiny mirrors and reflecting our own selves back at us—often when we are not at our most flattering. When one my children was quite young—just starting to get really verbal—I would ask her why she did or said something. She would answer with all the ease and stubbornness she could muster (quite natural for her, actually) “Bee-ked so!” Which, in translation, was her version of something I swore I would never say as a parent: “Because I said so…”
As teens, my kids have become quite the orators and debaters. They try out their negotiating and rationalizing skills on me all the time. (Notice I say “on” me and not “with” me). They’re pretty darn good when the weave their web of logic and “now, don’t you thinks” and “If I remember correctly, you saids.” Sometimes, a parent just has to pull out the old stand-by: “Because I’m the Mom, that’s why!”
When my children were younger, I used to tell them that the reason I couldn’t give in, or let them do something they wanted to that was unsafe or unwise; it was because I would lose my “Mom License.” It seemed officially enough that it actually worked for a few years. Well, when they found out that no one else had to have a Mom License, my trick was exposed and I struggled to find something else that would work as effectively. As a pretty decent communicator, I was able to hang in there on my own debating and logic skills for another year or two. I was reasonably intelligent, I knew things, and somehow I managed to hang on to some authority and win most “negotiations.”
Well, I’m outmatched. Heaven forbid all three gang up on me at once (two of them looking me in the eye all the while). All I have left is the classics: “Because I said so!” and “Because, I’m the Mom, that’s why!”