Back in the days when my kids were small enough that I had to do (read: wipe) everything for them, I couldn’t wait for the day when they would finally come to me and say those five little magic words: “I can do it myself.” I pictured us–if not exactly sailing smoothly out of the door every morning–at least making steady daily progress towards that goal. What’s more, I saw those mornings in between the two stages of helplessness and self-sufficiency as being filled with scenes of youthful fumbling so charming that it would look like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long after I had conceived of this delightful vision that the reality set in, and I learned that, when it comes to children, the words “I can do it myself” are usually only uttered in the final three minutes before we absolutely must be out of the door or else be irrevocably late for school, movies, kidney transplants, etc. This means that, although the picture of a child sitting haphazardly on the floor and struggling to put his new shoes on not only upside down but on the wrong foot as he chants “I can do it myself” may very well be Rockwellian, the truth is it soon becomes lost in the much larger, much more Daliesque vision of ticking clocks and an anxious mother dancing worriedly to and fro and saying, “Here…if you just…can I…maybe if we…” until finally, in a fit of frustration, she snatches the shoe from the offending party’s hand, shoves it on the offending party’s foot, and heads out the door, one very offended child in tow.
I know. I KNOW. These are the “teachable moments.” These are the times when I should dredge up my inner Andy Griffith (the Sheriff Taylor version, not the Matlock one–he’ll come in handy later, when they come home smelling of booze and cigarettes and try to pull off some crazy story about arriving at an intersection just in time to witness a tragic pile-up between a beer truck, a cigarette salesman, and, just possibly, a 1968 VW bus). These are the times when I need to exercise all of my saintly patience, knowing full well that my reward will come later in the form of never having to sue for visitation rights to see my grandkids. These are the times when I need to see that these are not only Rockwell moments, but Kodak and AT &T long-distance commercial moments combined. In other words, these are the times when I totally lose my cool.
Part of it is because, in order for a child to ever perform a task on their own, they must first be given instructions which have been broken down so thoroughly that, if you were to just add a few lines of code, could probably be used to program a computer. Take sewing. The other day Clementine wanted to sew a patch onto her favorite pair of jeans “all by herself;”she just needed a little help. First she needed “a little help” to find the needle. Then to find the thread. Then to find the needle threader. Then to learn how to use the threader. Then, after giving up on that, to find someone to thread the needle for her. Then to find a patch. Then to know where to put the needle. Then to know why the thread just pulled through. Then to know “what kind of knot” to put in the thread. Then to have someone else put the knot in for her… And so on.
By the time “she” was done I had put so much work into it–and received so little credit in return–that I felt like I had just produced a Paris Hilton album–and there’s not a thing that’s Rockwellian about that image.