Sometimes, A Father Has To Be A Mother

When I was about seventeen, I wanted to go to a party on Saturday night. I had not done my chores or homework, and Mom said: “No.”

I argued and pleaded and brought tears to my eyes, and probably put bass in my voice in an attempt at intimidation.

And she didn’t bend. And she said: “I’m sorry that I can’t be what you want, but someone has to be the adult. I’m not a friend. I’m just a mother.”

“I’ll say you are,” I replied.

Beat.

And then we both cracked up, tension broken. But I didn’t go to that party.

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Yesterday I had to put my foot down. Jason was supposed to have his room clean by 5pm on Monday, and it wasn’t. I gave him another day, and then another, and finally warned him that if it wasn’t all done by 7pm last night, his Internet was going off. He dragged his feet, obviously thinking I was bluffing.

Then I let him know he had fifteen minutes, and instead of cleaning, he used that time to try to argue with me about why I was being horribly unfair not to let him have until Friday. Nothing he could say swayed me, and he tried quite a few tactics: guilt, anger, confusion “I don’t understand…”, misremembering conversations (T and I had to exchange a couple of incredulous expressions at his convenient memory), calling me a liar, etc. etc. Yelling. Tears.

I just observed. My my. Caterpillar afraid to become a butterfly. I get it. It’s…