DR. SPOCK TURNS OVER IN HIS GRAVE

All right.  I will declare it right now for all the world to learn.

I am not the world’s best parent.  I’m not even close.  In fact, I’m miles away from even being a distant runner up in the competition.

I’m impatient with my kids.  I lose my temper.  I even scream at them.

I tune them out when they’re chattering away and I’m thinking about something else.  I leave Sarah to assist the boys with their homework instead of helping them myself.  I let them go to school without brushing their teeth in the morning because I just can’t fight over it for another morning.

I’m not at all consistent.  I used to be, but it’s so darn tiring that too often I simply let them keep doing something I know (and more importantly, they know) they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with.

I’ve resorted to “because I said so” because it’s easier, even when I really do have a good and valid reason that would make an excellent teachable moment.

“Ah well,” I used to quip whenever one of those imperfect moments occurred, “I guess they’ll talk about that in therapy in thirty years.”  The list of things they’re going to discuss with their therapists has gotten so long that I don’t use that glib joke any more.

In my defense, my children are not angels.

They whine, they push limits, they do things they know they’re not supposed to do (see the previous item), they argue with everything, they don’t listen when I talk even if it’s to answer a question they just asked me, and one of them is a new teenager (no explanation necessary).  They bicker with each other and with me until I want to pull my hair out.  And I swear they live to annoy each other, and by extension me.

In other words, we’re a typical family.

So why is it that in one day, in a city thousands of miles from my home town, four complete strangers made an observation about my family that has me questioning the state of families all over America?

What, you ask, might possibly cause me such consternation?

The first situations occurred at breakfast.

We were in a highly recommended and obviously very popular local dive.  We could tell it was popular because every one of the dozen or so close-packed tables was filled when we arrived.  The wait, though, was a relatively short ten minutes compared to the wait for our simple order.  More than forty-five minutes after our waitress Amy handed in the ticket requesting two omelets, two pancakes, and a bowl of oatmeal, our grumbling stomachs were finally assuaged by the arrival of said food.

Forty-five minutes.

Any parent will tell you that sitting in a crowded restaurant with three starving children is difficult under the best of circumstances, but once the wait time becomes longer than ten minutes the potential for parental embarrassment rises incrementally with each passing sixty second interval.  If you’d asked me to describe the ensuing scene, I would have cringed and explained that my children were not shown to their best advantage.

They squirmed, they told nine-year-old potty jokes, they wriggled, they tried to convince us to let them watch inappropriate movies, they fidgeted, they wondered loudly where our food was.

We resorted to every parental weapon in our arsenal – distraction, joining in the jokes, pretending they weren’t ours; but eventually we simply ran out of ammunition and spent our time praying for the food to arrive.

Eventually our prayers were answered and we spent the next fifteen minutes in a soothing respite of silent ingestion.

Imagine my dread, then, when the man at the next table walked over as he was leaving obviously intending to talk to us.

“You really should learn to control your children,” I pictured him saying.  My answer, even in my daydream, was sputtered and imperfect and full of self-justification that even I didn’t buy.

His actual words had me sputtering as well.

“You really are wonderful parents,” he said.  I swear I looked behind me to see if he was talking to someone else, but at that moment there were no other children in the place.  Gene and I both managed to get out surprised “Thank you’s” before our complimentary stranger left and we exchanged shocked looks of disbelief.

And so the morning continued.

Our excited kids were rambunctious, and a man complimented Gene on his skills as a father.

We tried to hush them up, and a woman commented that she loved the way we interacted as a family.

My theory was that they put something in the water at that establishment to make everyone see the world through rose-colored glasses.  I was sorry to leave it.

By the time we were in WalMart shopping for groceries at the end of a day chock full of museum touring and IMAX watching, we were all tired and not a little cranky.  At the checkout counter Sarah insisted on carrying only the cupcake she’d bought for dessert rather than putting it in the grocery bag and carrying the entire thing.

I was short with her, Gene was loud.  She put it in the bag and walked out in a huff.

“Wow,” said the checkout girl, “you’re really great with your kids.”

We exchanged that look again.

“You don’t know what I see.  Just about fifteen minutes ago I had a woman come through here and you should have heard the names she was calling her children.  Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Back in the car Gene and I tried to process that whole thing.

“We’re not that great parents,” I stated.  “I mean, we’re not terrible, but we’re certainly not great.”

“What does that mean other parents are like?”

“I know!”  But I don’t know.

I keep having visions of those children in WalMart whose mother was calling them names in the crowded checkout line.  Is that the norm of American parenting?  Are Gene and I in all our imperfection the best that America can do?

Boy I hope not.

For Gene's very different view of the same journey, check out his blog at www.ConnorsArmy.blogspot.com
To learn more about Connor's Army go to www.ConnorsArmy.org
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