Parenting terrorists
Little girls are angels right?
Perfect little beings that fart perfume and throw cute diva-like tantrums when they demand that Barbie Mariposa marsion with matching pool that costs 3 months rent is a fairly decent Nairobi suburb.
They mostly are.
But don’t be fooled.
I have in my possession 2 such angel specimens (That’s my story. I own em till they are 18. At that point a young man, with my permission, may lease with an option to buy.)
Let’s talk about the older one.
She is now 6 going on 40. She has very defined ideas about how the world is supposed to work. A big part of the world working is her getting her own way. In many ways, she’s quite brilliant. She has at last count....
1) Used a giant tub of Valon to make her bedroom floor a skating rink. She further enhanced the slipperiness by coating the soles of her feet with Elianto (inspired by watching her mom make chapattis)
2) Used up half a bottle of washing up liquid to make bubble solution. On this one, I was part of the guilty party. After a looooong (5 minutes adult time, 8 hours kiddie time) lecture on the expense of such commodities, I promptly raided wifey’s stash of beauty products, dumped the contents of several glycerin containers and proceeded to go out and make giant bubbles
But the most memorable act of juvenile terrorism occurred after her punishment for some transgression that I can’t quite recall. We don’t usually spank our children. It’s the nuclear option, reserved for clear significant violations. Most times, a time out, restrictions in play time and blocked access to cartoons works pretty well.
On this occasion, she had pulled two back to back violations and was to miss out on 2 weeks of cartoons. Now, you need to understand that I have an ENORMOUS stash of toons. She would watch either a new animated movie or series every day. So no toons? For 2 WEEKS…
She thought that over. She mulled over it. The situation was given due consideration. The something snapped.
She came marching up to Wifey and I. The following is the speech she made:
“You guys have been punishing me…all this time. Ever since I was a baby. Kwanza you (points at me) Papa. You have been punishing me and I have never punished you. So today, I’m going to punish you.”
She holds up 3 fingers.
“You have 3 options. One, I spoil something of yours. Your computer, your car, your radio….just something. Two, YOU (meaning me) do EVERYTHING in this house. You wash, cook, wash me and my clothes. Three, I KILL you”
And then she stood there. Her eyes shone with anger, defiance, fear and an element that I couldn’t quite identify.
I figured the best way to handle the situation was not to escalate to Defcon 5 and go into witness protection. I took the dialogue option and had a heart to heart where she explained that she tends to forget easily. When she forgets, she got punished. When punished, she would get worried, and when she got worried, she would forget…
So we were able to nip that potential assassin in the bud…
She was four at the time. Eighteen is looking really far away right about now…
