One of the first things I learned as a parent was that children are obsessed with technicalities. Therefore, setting a rule for a child is like asking for a wish from a malevolent genie: no matter how carefully you think you have worded your request, there will always be some loophole you didn’t see. With the genie, if you ask them for a million dollars they are likely to grant your wish in the form of several tons of pennies—directly above your head. With the child, asking them not to throw balls in the house pretty much guarantees that they will all be kicked.
Like I said, you can try to get around these problems by carefully wording your requests: “I want a million dollars, not to land on me and kill me,” or “No balls may be propelled from any appendage while inside a domicile,” but a clever genie or child will always find ways to get around that. “What? It didn’t land on you; it rolled on you,” and “But I was outside when I knocked the ball in through the window.” That’s why, when it comes to rules, I have found that it is much easier to make mine less specific, not more. And in fact, I have managed to parse them down to one simple rule that even the cleverest of children (that would be my own) have yet to find a way around.
Don’t annoy me.
That’s The One Rule in its entirety. The beauty of such a simple rule is that it can change with the times without my having to amend it. Whereupon on a normal day “don’t annoy me” might mean “no running chainsaws outside my bedroom door before seven AM,” on a day I’m hungover it might mean “no chainsaws outside my bedroom door at all.” (Actually, the rule is almost always no chainsaws outside my bedroom door, because who has to go get more gas when they run out? Me, that’s who. And that’s annoying.)
At first my children complained about the arbitrariness of The One Rule. “But you’re always annoyed about something,” they said. “How are we supposed to know what will annoy you next?”
“You can’t,” I replied. “So why take a chance?”
I like to think my parenting style is a cross between a Hawaiian volcano goddess and Aunty from Beyond Thunderdome: firm, caring, and just a little bit cray cray. To outsiders (and my children) that might seem a little harsh, but the way I see it is that they should be grateful: at least I don’t make them sacrifice virgins or fight each other to the death in a steel cage. (Actually, the problems at my house usually stem from me trying to stop such activities.) When you think about it both Pele and Aunty really had the same goal: keeping the miscreants under their charge from killing each other. That’s where most of their rules—and mine—come from. And if sometimes some of their rules seemed to get a little bit out of hand, well, we’ve all been on those road trips where someone finally says something like, “No one can chew their food more than twenty times or less than three times ever again!”
Which is why I refer you once more to the beauty of The One Rule. Don’t annoy me. If Pele had had such a rule in place than maybe their wouldn’t have needed to be quite so many volcanic eruptions over the millennium. And if Aunty had had such a rule, then Mel Gibson might need never have risked his magnificent mullet in the Thunderdome. But then again, there are some people who just seem born to break the rules. Even if there is only one of them.