“No you can’t have another biscuit, you’ve already had two. Remember we agreed on two?”
“But you had THREEEEE!” he screams at me in indignant rage.
Er, that’s true.
Actually I’m quietly relieved because this uncomfortable moment could be so much worse. He didn’t spot the one I scarfed down as I was putting them onto the plate, and also not the other one I shovelled in as I was bringing the plate to the table.
And so once again a parenting moment brings me face to face with myself.
Why won’t I let him have another? Because it’s bad for his little body. So then why is it ok for me to have three? Ok, five… maybe six or so – I did have to clear the table afterwards you know and there’s really no point in keeping a whole packet in the cupboard for just one or two biscuits is there? And anyway in terms of proportion and body mass I think my seven or eight biscuits is comparable to his two… no?
Ok that’s enough. I’m trying to make a point.
Why can I put junk in my system but I stand as the guardian of the purity of his? When I think of my child’s system I think of it as pure and clean. It’s still developing and growing – putting sugar and chemicals into that system just seems all wrong to me. I want to prevent it as much as possible. But what does it mean about how I see my own system if I think it’s ok for me to have it? That my system is dirty? Defiled? Old? Stagnant?
Yikes!
I hate to think that’s how I see my body but those are the antonyms to pure, clean, developing and growing, see?
Pure – Defiled
Clean – Dirty
Developing – Stagnant
Growing – Old
That’s not me!
So why do I unthinkingly treat myself as if that is me? Why do I not stand as firmly as the guardian of the purity of me? Why do I think my body is any less precious than my child’s? Isn’t that a weird and totally illogical thing to think?
Yes it is – but apparently quite normal.
We have weird double standards for what we think is ok for us but not ok for the kids – which can go both ways. Some people let their kids eat or do things they would never touch themselves. Some of our ways are rational but some of them are based on value. Without thinking about it, we value one of us more than the other.
I’d like to stop my hypocrisy. Not by letting my child have as much junk as me but by treasuring my own system as much as I do his. I’d also like to feel precious to me. As precious as my child is to me. That would be nice…
Makes one re-think why we don’t let our kids watch TV but we are ok to allow ourselves to watch all the “crap” on TV – the murders and bashing’s, the ugliness! Ok for kids to watch animal planet but once they are in bed we watch another version of “animals”….
Oh man I hadn’t even gone there! It’s quite amazing how much we have different value systems for what goes into us and what’s ok to put into them. What do you think is driving it?
To Melanie. Yes, and have we forgotten, or do we even know that as we fill our minds with the not-nice stuff we help it grow and increase?
Do you mean we help the ‘not-nice’ grow and increase? That’s an interesting point. I think it’s true because when you focus on how yukky things are it seems like all you can see and that affects how you feel and therefore how you act…
So there it is again. Take care of what we put into our own systems.
Oh, that’s me all right, only X 20
I love the smell of honesty in the morning! Thanks for that. You got me giggling…