One of the sexiest things a woman can hear is her partner telling her children, "Hey, listen to your mother."
When my husband says this, I get momentarily distracted from whatever harping is causing my teenager's eyes to roll. I have to pause a moment and give a prayer of gratitude for what we all need:
Backup.
In the newsroom, we sometimes hear a dispatcher on the scanner asking if police need more units wherever they are responding. Co-parenting is a lot like this. Someone with impressive authority, quick response time, and serious weaponry is truly appreciated when a situation gets overwhelming.
Tangling with teenagers is not for the weak. Mine happens to stand more than a foot taller than me too, so eye-to-eye confrontations work only when he cooperates.
I usually hold my own with him quite well. He trends on the obedient side of the spectrum anyway. Yet he is still a child, and I am still a parent, and there are days when recalibration is needed.
Sometimes I'm off my game, or sometimes that kid simply loses his mind and thinks he can grumble or guff his way out of it. Either way, it becomes quickly evident that we are both in need of a rescue, me from floundering and him from himself.
Enter the other adult, and the power balance shifts with a heavy thud.
"Listen to your mother" is code for "Shut your mouth." It means the child has crossed a boundary, and the mother's partner isn't going to stand for it a moment longer. It means, "I don't care if she's cranky or wrong or irrational, I'm on her side, period. You have several years yet to figure out how you're truly going to become an independent person who is responsible for himself, but only one more second to realize that you are going to listen to the entire rant, nod your head, apologize, and then perform whatever rectifying behavior she wishes."
Depending on the sharpness of the tone, it also can mean that the child is about to raise the stakes -- and lose. The co-parent is signaling that while it may have taken that long to exhaust one parent's patience, the other one's fuse is shorter. The child has forfeited whatever reasonable and commensurate consequence the first parent was trying to mete out and is about to incur some serious wrath, not only for what he did in the first place but also for bringing distress to a beloved partner.
The phrase could just mean, "Good grief, I can't stand the sound of her high-pitched ragging anymore either, so just say yes and get it over with so I can watch TV in peace, please."
It's all good, as far as I'm concerned. It satisfies what I need in that moment, which is some help.
This is why single parenting can be challenging. Single mothers are not less successful at mothering than married ones. In fact, it may be the contrary because they have to try that much harder to keep it all together.
What's really missing in their parenting experiences is the other cop standing just behind them, badge gleaming and hand lightly resting on a holster. The confidence, the validation, the mere assistance of "Listen to your mother" is an advantage partnered parents have.
What my son doesn't know is that when he leaves the room after a conversation has been wrapped up by the utterance of, "Hey, listen to your mother," the gleaming-eyed shrew that was his angry mom suddenly melts into a love-struck, doe-eyed wife who smothers her husband with kisses.
It's truly a magical phrase.
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