Greg Learns To Write

“When a problem is over, it’s over.” I heard this phrase last week, and have been ruminating on it since. I applied it with my beloved child this morning, and learned something… I think.

This morning it hit me that my Beloved Child (BC for short) has problems with accepting boundaries. BC (name-withheld) wants things “their” (gender-withheld) way. (Not that BC will always resist boundaries, or that BC is “boundary-resistant”, but that at this stage of BC’s life, this is an issue that he/she is struggling with.)

Laying in bed reading to BC, BC coughed into his/her elbow, not covering his/her mouth.

“Please cough into this tissue next time,” I said, handing BC a tissue.
“Why should I?” Moving the tissue away, “I’m coughing into my elbow like I’m supposed to.”
“Your arm, without a sleeve on it, is aerodynamic and a cough will blast right around it onto my bed — I don’t want to get sick. Please use the tissue.”

BC leaves the tissue at arms length. I continue to read to BC.

…thinking, as I read, that the next cough will come way too fast for BC to grab the tissue. …thinking I should just move the tissue closer to BC so that there will be enough time for BC to grab it.

And realizing that I cannot — must not — caretake and rescue the situation! BC had to make his/her own decision.

So, BC coughs. The tissue is at arms length.

Now, comes the learning part. For me, the hard part.

Sternly, yet not angrily, I say: “If you cough again, then you will either cough into the tissue, or you will get out of my bed and go cough across the room to cough, or you can get out of my bed now.”

Then, putting my trust in my child, and instead of belaboring the point, I start reading again out-loud.

BC looks perplexed, then relaxed… and the next time BC coughed, it was into a tissue.

I felt better not having to nag or bawl my child out.

Life is good. Boundaries are nice. And being happy is a great thing.

The meta issues I faced trying to be non-gender-deterministic

I think it’s a bad idea to talk about a kid, especially on a blog. I would never want my kids to feel like I’m objectifying them. Yet, I also want to be able to write about my parenting experiences so that I can learn to be a better father (and learn to write better at the same time). So, you can read below what I initially wrote. It didn’t work. Definitely a first draft: interesting as an entity, but not the way to actually start off talking about the initial topic “how to make problems end quickly.”

hr.

I applied something I heard last week to solving a problem this morning with my child (let’s call ‘em Casey — a good gender-neutral name): "When a problem is over, it’s over."

In reading “Boundaries in Marriage” (I always want to be improving my marriage), I realized that Casey has boundary crossing issues. He/she/they (I know that “they” is commonly misused when “he” or “she” or “he/she” should be used, but let’s face it: saying “he/she” is lame, and frankly, I’m going through great lengths to not specify the gender of the child, and so until we all invent a better non-gender specific referent for a single person, I’m going to use “they” instead of “he/she”.)

So, Casey (name-modified) has problems with their (gender-withheld) respect of boundary. Casey wants their way (that does sound awkward, it’s true — would love to hear improvements). Casey wants his/her way. Often.

I was reading to Casey in bed; Casey coughs; I don’t want to get sick; I tell Casey to cover your mouth.

• Note to self: trying to be gender non-deterministic is quite difficult. It would be so much easier to say “I was reading to Casey in bed. She coughs,” or he coughs, but it sounds strange to say they cough… so I’m left with “I was reading to Casey in bed. Casey coughs.” But then I’m just saying their name a lot, so I might want to change “Casey” to “Cas,” or BC for “beloved child”.