Let's Get This Straight: You're the Parent, He's the Toddler

I recently read a fairly cute blog post on how to recognize parents with toddlers in a grocery store.

It's not exactly farce, though. Some parents really do let their kids open food packages while shopping and let their kids unload the cart at the checkout.

Screw that.

Ask my son Gabe, and hopefully he will tell you that he had a happy, idyllic childhood. And I never once let him eat something in the grocery store before I paid for it.

He may have helped unload the cart, but I'd be damned if I waited on him to do it all or, worse, make the person behind me wait. And if he ever shot me one of those "NOOO! Gabe do himself!" shouts, that would have been the last time he helped. Ever.

Call me old-fashioned, but I was not put on this earth to be ruled by a toddler. I've had enough immature, tyrannical bosses in my life, thank you very much, and I refuse to enthrone one who came out of my own body.

I know very well that I have succumbed just like any other parent to whatever immediate relief will make a kid happy (well, quiet) in a given moment. But I don't make those moments into regular habits for my child.

Gabe learned early that mommy giveth AND mommy taketh away. But it was a consistent dichotomy: What I permitted I always permitted, and what I refused I always refused. Consistency is the holy grail of parenting. Sure there were lapses, but that probably helped him trust that I was a human being with her own failings and that he need not develop any inferiority complexes over it.

Sometimes new parents ask me, "How do you get a child to _______?" Whatever fills in that blank, I often have trouble really describing how. An answer of, "Uh, I just told Gabe and he did it" is rather unsatisfactory, but it's the truth.

[Keep in mind we're talking toddlerhood here. Getting Gabe the teenager to do whatever I want him to do in whatever way and whenever time I want him to do it is a whole 'nother ballgame.]

While I tried to be calm and kind, I do admit that most of my directives were just that: directives. Commands. Authoritative statements. "Buddy, put away that toy before you get out another one." "Gabe, it's bedtime. Brush your teeth." If I ever added the word "please," it usually indicated an escalated level of command, as in, "Turn. Off. The. Television. Please."

I would throw in some questions and choices, just to mix it up and make sure he wasn't completely warped as a child. But they weren't about anything that I had strong feelings. Bedtime was bedtime. It was not a negotiation. What plastic toy he could drag into the bathtub or out to the sandbox? Have at it, kiddo.

This kind of parenting takes extreme dedication, and it helps greatly if you were raised this way in the first place. To save yourself so much aggravation down the road, you must be willing to take the time to show a child how to do whatever you want him to do. You must sacrifice your personal desires and needs and resist the temptation to give in just to get back to your own life. You must be willing to dig your nails into your palms to keep at bay exasperated screams and camouflage the buttons being pressed. (Make those known and you are toast.)

They don't call it "sticking to your guns" for nothing. This is heavy ammo you are wielding, and it must be done with the same amount of care and discretion as any rules of engagement in a war zone.

You will need to pick your battles, to 1) save your own sanity, and 2) keep your kid off some psychologist's couch in the future, complaining about what a controlling bitch of a mother he had. But if you do battle, you had better win.

I know several lovely, decent, well-intentioned parents who involve their children in every level of family interaction and empower them with adult activities as soon as their gross motor functions materialize. If a child expresses a desire to do/eat/play with something, the wish is granted at the parent's immediate convenience. The child is the sun and all other family members orbit around him.

If all that works for them, woo-hoo. It's just not how I roll. Because it's not only the parent who has become subject to that little person. House guests are expected to treat the child that way; strangers in public are expected to accommodate the waiting, wailing and wandering. I'm not into that unless there is a medical or behavioral condition.

If my toddler has real hunger-induced crankiness while we are at the grocery store, I leave my cart right in the aisle, exit the store, go home (or to the car or park or restaurant or some other acceptable eating space) and feed him, and then we try the shopping trip all over again.

If he's fussing because he just wants to eat that muffin right away because it looks yummy, he does not get it. (Heck, I know it looks delicious, I'm the one who put it in the cart, but if I can wait, so can he.) If he throws a fit and demands the muffin, I leave my cart right in the aisle, exit the store, go home, and put his ass in time out. I wait for someone else to be with him, and then I go try the shopping trip again by myself. (And duh, those muffins ain't coming home.) Dinner may be three hours late, but one screwed-up meal is worth having your child behave on every other shopping trip you'll take together.

That's the hard part, the heavy artillery. There are times for diplomacy and lots of opportunity for outright silliness and relief. You must control the moments that are critical for teaching your child how to be a respectable person in society, but every other moment can be filled with cuddles and kisses and laughter and joy. Do attend to their general comfort, and bolster their self-esteem. Ooh and aah at art projects, compliment tasks well done, spend lots and lots of time reading books together. You must do that part of parenting too.

Please.