Tell me why
when it’s okay to interrogate your father in the bathroom
Without knowing what the other side wants, there is no chance of compromising.
This happened when our son Mitch was seven years old. I was still recovering from surgery, which seemed like a plausible excuse for not attending the fundraising event at his school. So Mitchy turned his attention to Dad, who just came home from work.
“Why don’t you want to go to school?” I heard Mitch interrogating him in a shower.
“We talked about this last week, and you were cool with it,” my husband said over the noise of running water.
“I changed my mind,” Mitch said.
“Too late,” my husband said,” weren’t we supposed to prepare in advance, to write a recipe or something?”
“I’ll say that we didn’t know if we could come.”
“But I don’t want to go.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t want to,” my husband said.
“That’s not a reason,” Mitch insisted, “give me a real reason.”
“That’s it,” my husband said, “ Close the curtain and go away. I’m cold.”
Mitch came out of the bathroom, shaking his head.
“Geez, “don’t want to?’ ” he rolled his eyes. “ There’s got to be a better reason!”
He looked at me for support. I caught myself nodding in agreement and looked away. There was no point in teaching my son to badmouth people behind their backs.
Mitch sighed and retreated to his room, disappointed.
My husband came out of the bathroom with a frown on his freshly shaved face.
“Because you discuss every move with them, your children have no idea what it’s like just not wanting to do something,” he said. “They believe there must be a rational reason behind every decision.”
“Isn’t there?” I said. “I think he’s right, you do have your reasons.”
“It’s not a reason, but a difference of interests,” my husband said. “Mitch wants to hang out, and I want to be home.”
Unlike me, my husband never needed long discussions to know who wanted what. Too bad that Mich took after me.
“Mitchy!” I cried toward the closed door. “Dad doesn’t want to go to school because he wants to relax at home.”
“That’s okay,” he shouted back, “we can stay at home and play board games.”
“I’ll have no peace in this house,” my husband chuckled. “Anyone’s up for Monopoly?”
The best compromise is not when you meet in the middle and get the result no one had wanted, but when everyone is satisfied. So Dad stayed at home, and Mitch did hang out. Hey, when you’re seven and like to play board games, the parents can be a good enough company. And what’s interesting, the strongest want won. Out of three of us, Mich had the clearest, well-thought goal. Who knows if we would go along if we had better plans for the evening.
Mitch is eighteen now, and he can talk his friends into almost anything as long as they give him their motives. When I reminded him about the incident with Dad in the shower, he said that he still believes that there has to be a reason behind all actions.”You have no idea how surprised I am when my friends don’t know why they act one way or another,” he said, “which is almost all the time.” “Wouldn’t it be easier to know what you want?”
