Discipline (and career choices)

I recently read Instinctive Parenting by Ada Calhoun, in which she starts by saying that parenting books are mostly unhelpful because we all instinctively know what’s best for our children, and then goes on to dis everyone who parents differently to her. It almost made me write my third complaint letter of the year. However, in a chapter on discipline, I did enjoy this explanation of how kids think (from page 113):

...if they open an off-limits kitchen drawer again and again, it’s not “testing” in the way it’s often used. They’re not trying to make you crazy or test your nerves. They’re testing to make sure the rule is still the same, because if the rule is the same, then all is not chaos.

“Am I still not allowed to open this drawer?” they are asking with their actions. “Yes, this drawer is still off limits,” they say to themselves, relieved, when you scold them for getting into it. “Is it still off-limits?” they wonder again ten minutes later.

The very scary thing is that this describes my 11-month-old son perfectly, but Calhoun’s talking about two-year-olds. If my son is this persistent now, what will I be dealing with in a year? I shudder at the thought.

If I have learned one thing from looking after my son over the last month and a bit, it’s this: Discipline requires a lot of effort. It requires me to watch him vigilantly, not just look vaguely in his direction while daydreaming. It requires consistency, even when it would be so much easier just to let him touch the plant this once. The other day I caught myself feeling whiny about the constancy of this whole discipline thing before it struck me: Hang on a second, this is my job!

First of all, if I didn’t believe wholeheartedly that this was valid work and I was having some kind of influence on my son right now, why not just find someone else to feed him lunch and change his nappies and put him to bed and play that game where he sits on the back of the couch and then I pull out his legs so that he falls down and thunks onto the cushion and laughs and tries to climb back up to do it all over again! So cute! *sigh* Where was I?

Right – If I didn’t believe my role here was significant work, there’s no reason I shouldn’t find someone else to do all of that stuff while I go back to my old job and earn us some money. And secondly, if I did go back to my old job and approached my tasks there with this same whiny, “it’s all too much effort” attitude, I’m sure I’d be swiftly fired (and rightly so).

These realisations struck me with an overwhelming sense of responsibility and a warm sense of purpose! I do believe that being here with my son is a worthwhile, full-time job, even more so now that he’s testing boundaries and discovering how the world works. Among a million other things, I want to be around to keep pointing both of us to Jesus as the perfect model who we’re becoming more and more like as God’s Spirit works powerfully in us. I want to be around to show my son (or try, with God's help) what faith expressing itself through love looks like in everyday life, from sharing toys to being kind to big kids who push him when he tries to check out their trucks. I want to be around to model (or try, with God’s help) apologies and joy and repentance and submission and thankfulness and peace and forgiveness and prayerfulness; to teach him these things even as I continue to learn them for myself.

Many people have offered their (unsought) opinions on when I should plan to have my next child, should God choose to bless us with any more. More than once I’ve been told that it’s good to have your children close together to “get them out of the way.” But I don’t want to see this chapter of my life as something to wish away as quickly as possible, an unfortunate but necessary interlude before “real” life - a chance to do the work I want to do – begins once again. I want to work wholeheartedly at being a mum, as working for the Lord, and to repent each time I sigh at having to actually do my job.

While I’ll passionately debate anyone who tries to tell me that housekeeping is part of my mothering work (why are those two things still so often treated as being synonymous?), I will not deny that discipline falls very neatly under the motherhood umbrella. I’m kinda liking having a new task to add to my job description, though I’m praying that this feeling of motivation will continue even after I’ve said “no” for the 217th time tomorrow morning.

The photo's by Fadi Yakoub.

The Tree of Life

I went out on my own last Saturday. I felt as light as a bubble as I left home weighed down by only my small handbag, and I headed for the cinema excited but nervous about the film I was going to see: The Tree of Life. I knew I was going to absolutely love this movie. While the previews rolled I was already throwing around superlatives in my mind as I began to imagine the blog post I would be writing about it. The film started...

And I got bored. It's quite possible the whole thing went completely over my head.

And it went for a REALLY LONG TIME, which would have been okay, except that 1) I didn’t really know what the film meant and was tired of trying to figure it out, and 2) I had to be home by 3:30pm to feed my son.

“See you in a couple of hours!” I’d called breezily to my husband as I left the house, without even thinking to check how long the movie actually went for. There was a point (not far from the end, fortunately), when I thought, “This feels like it’s been going for a really long time”, and then I thought, “Oh dear, this is precisely the kind of movie that could go for FOUR HOURS!” and then I had to work out which was worse: Being judged by the classy people around me for checking my phone for the time and then possibly having to leave before the film ended, or arriving home two hours later than promised.

My heart raced and I broke out in a cold sweat as I tossed up my options. As a result, I have absolutely no idea what happened in the final scenes, but I’m fairly confident it was just as weird as the rest of the movie. When the credits finally did flash up, after the longest two minutes of my life, I suppressed a sigh of relief and then waited politely for about 13 seconds before bolting for the door.

So, a summary of the movie: the music was beautiful and induced goose bumps many a time, especially when played over dazzling images of space and water and lava and... dinosaurs. The acting was good, particularly that of Hunter McCracken (who plays the young version of the main character, Jack). Jack’s mother, supposedly the personification of grace, was airy-fairy and irritating, but I saw grace represented sweetly by Jack’s younger brother (he also looks just like a tiny Brad Pitt! Check him out in the picture below). The story was simple and not uninteresting, but woven through it were the weird bits, like everything involving Sean Penn’s older Jack. And did I mention there were dinosaurs?!

At no point in the film was I captivated to the point where my brain shut up, and my general impression looking back is “meh.” It’s quite clear I’ve missed something huge here, as people who know what they’re talking about are going nuts over this film: Margaret Pomeranz, for example, gave it 5 stars. It’s possible you have to be a fan of the director, Terrence Malick, to love this film. I’m not, and I didn’t.

My baby-free time is too precious to spend sitting around wondering if Brad Pitt’s wearing much make up or if he really is that old these days – I need films to immediately transport me elsewhere and completely distract me for a couple of hours. This isn’t a bad movie, but it did neither of those things, AND I paid $18 for it. Humph.

P.S. I’ve just found this review which I wish I'd written.