The words flew out of me before I could really think about it. And afterwards I wanted to crawl into a mouse hole and stay there almost forever:
– Are you supposed to have your heads banged together or what?
The sentence was directed at my two eldest daughters, who were sitting across from me at a table in a café, and they had just, while we were otherwise nicely waiting for our food, been tearing each other’s hair out. The reason is lost in the mists of oblivion. Perhaps there never really was one.
But in any case, I couldn’t bear another one of those sibling conflicts, which can usually quickly become both violent and rather shrill, so I took it in the bud with a quick little threat.
Admittedly, it was a threat I had used before, but always at home, and it has proven extremely effective in the past in stopping them from escalating another argument. Mostly because it always makes them laugh.
Now, for the first time, I had fired it in public.
And it hit me, just a split second too late, that strangers could hear me. For four heads at the table next to us suddenly turned collectively in my direction.
How did I end up here?
I hope it’s not necessary, but I’ll say it anyway for the record: I could never think of banging my children’s heads together.
Then we have it out of the world.
So, before I had children, did I ever imagine that I would say such a thing to them? Never. In any case, I shouldn’t be that kind of mother – I was far too spacious and highly educated for that and blah blah blah. You know the type, she can seem a little saved.
So how did I end up resorting to such methods anyway?
That is the good question.
I think most parents experience a gradual slide in the course of parenthood. The size of the slide probably varies according to the level of self-awareness, but it is nevertheless a slide that takes both ideals and principles with it once it sets in motion.
For real children, things are always arranged somewhat differently than the splendid specimens you plan to get, and the daily arm-wrestling about everything from morning tooth-brushing to the number of bedtime stories can reveal sides of ourselves that we would probably rather never see.
And it is there that you discover how free most of those principles you formulated for yourself before you had children really are – such as, for example, that you would never lure or threaten your children into anything.
It is also there that you realize that the mentally upturned eyes you have made from other parents’ upbringing methods should actually have triggered a small slap on the spot.
Because you have no idea what you’re talking about until you’ve tried to handle 15 kilos of iron will that will screw up your agenda.
Considered running away
So yes. There I found myself at a cafe table and felt an urgent need to bang my head on it.
For now there were four grown-up people sitting right next to me, who had interrupted both conversation and eating to instead look in my and my children’s direction.
I briefly considered whether I could manage to escape the establishment with the three laughing girls I am a mother before someone could call social services.
Or if I should just accept my fate and let someone more suitable than me take care of turning my children into well-functioning, well-rounded people.
– No, sorry, that’s not how I usually talk to them, I heard myself lie with flushed cheeks.
But then it was still as if the sun broke through on a cloudy day. Too bad I didn’t hear a volley of laughter from the next table.
– You don’t have to think about that. It’s actually quite liberating to hear parents today talk like that, said one of the gentlemen over there.
Then they returned to their food, while I stuck my phone with the kids with an episode of the cartoon “Bluey”. And five minutes later, luckily, it was served.
Briefly about Camilla Stougård Christoffersen
- Journalist in Northern Jutland since 2021 with a focus on writing about lifestyle and everything that might include and concern families with young children
- Mother of three girls aged 5, 4 and 2.5 years respectively
- Lives on an old farm in southern Himmerland, where the laundry basket is always full
2024-10-03 15:57:26
#middle #busy #café #blurted #children #promised
