The One Rule My Children Hated
And two other rules to help save your sanity.
We all have that friend or set of friends that have no children. And that’s ok, I get it, it’s not for everyone. To someone who doesn’t have children, parenting seems straightforward. What they don’t recognize children do not arrive with a manual. Cliché I know, but very true. To compound the issue of “flying blind”, multiple children bring even more unknown challenges and frustrations.
I would take a bullet for my children. From the moment I saw them, I experienced a love unknown to me until then. Yet, with that love, came fear. What the hell do I do now? Fortunately, for me, nature took over, and I was transformed. I saw the world as not of a place of opportunity and discovery, but a world of hidden dangers lurking just below the kitchen sink. Yep, we need to lock that up.
Next child number two and three, then number three. Same love, same danger zones. It becomes old hat and second nature. The danger isn’t that bad, it’s manageable. And if you’re lucky, number “one” can help!
Every day there were brand new, never seen before incidents that made me sharp. I had to be quick with a new rule or an answer to solve each one. My first rule saved me many arguments and at the same time, helped my kids be more methodical in their decision-making process. I will count them down to the one they hated the most and still talk about as adults today.
The Logic Rule
One bright fall day my son at age nine or ten wanted to climb onto the roof so he could jump onto the trampoline. Being a kid internally myself, it actually looked like fun. The thought of it took me back to the famous blizzard of 1978. My brother and I, being eight and ten, took turns jumping from the roof into the high snowbanks on the side of our house. We didn’t ask for permission. We knew what that answer would be “No, I don’t want you to get hurt”. The roof that day had leaves scattered about and looked hazardous. When my son asked for permission, I answered like my father would “No, I don’t want you to get hurt.” My son’s reply was quick and expected, “but Dad, I won’t get hurt.” Chances are he would have more fun than anything. Yet, there was nevertheless that chance of a broken bone, a chipped tooth….or worse, a precedent set.
I had to apply what I presently term the Logic Rule. It isn’t final and is open for debate.
“I know you won’t get hurt because you are not jumping off the roof onto the trampoline.”
It took a few seconds to register with my son. I wasn’t saying no to jumping off the roof, I was taking away the opportunity that he could in fact get hurt. I waited for him to make his case…he had no argument. When there was a case to be heard, I would listen. Father knows best the saying goes, not Father knows all. My mind could be changed. I couldn’t go through the “but why?” “Because I said so” routine. I always hated that.
Precedent set.
It took a while, but it would ultimately sink into my kids. They had to think things through before doing anything.
Suffer the Little Children
The word “suffer” in Early Modern English means to allow something or tolerate an action. ( link it)
‘Make my kids suffer’ What kind of sadistic bastard am I anyways?
When I say suffer I don’t mean Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum type of suffering. I mean good ol fashion character building type of suffering. The type that leaves you with…yeah, I’ve been there and definitely don’t want to go back to that, kind of suffering. A comparative contrast to what is and what could be.
I made each child drive crappy cars for instance. I made sure each car was safe to drive but was never their desired vehicle. I made sure of that. I wanted them to feel the exhilaration when they finally did buy a new car.
In the missing manual on raising children, there would be a chapter titled ‘Infighting’. A section filled with blank pages and a note on the last page that said ‘Good Luck!’ Handling sibling rivalry is filled with pitfalls and traps. Taking sides in a fair and just way is never seen through your children’s eyes. You will always be unfair, take someone’s side or plain love the other one more.
The kids loved the summer months. It brought times of supervision. However, it caused me wasted hours at work trying to sort out petty arguments. One day I finally let out a long tirade of warnings to my kids that left my coworker asking me “Are you talking to your dog?”.
Then it hit me!
Ah! The one rule! The one rule to rule them all…or something like that. I do have to admit it was a stroke of genius, and it solved my issue of 20 calls a day from my kids.
The Double Trouble Rule
The problem of parenting while at work is you can not observe. You can’t stare a child in the face and see the guilt or watch from those proverbial eyes in the back of your head. Some kids are tattletales who love to get others in trouble and some kids are instigators. How do you make that judgement when you need to be in a meeting in 10 minutes and your phone is ringing again and again.
The rule states that if a child called for any reason, they both will be disciplined.
What? That’s unfair! Oh, but it is smart. One of them can not call me at work and be a tattletale without all of them getting into trouble. I took the military approach. They were disciplined as a whole.
By the third call of any given day, I enacted the Double Trouble Rule. I need not be bothered at work unless the house was burning down or a 911 call was at stake. They needed to handle their arguments and work it out themselves. If I did get a call after the rule was in place for the day, it was easy to identify the guilty party and the appropriate discipline was applied.
My kids are adults now. One is even a 2nd-grade school teacher. They all still cringe when I say “double trouble”!
