Bad Example

MOM: A PRIME EXAMPLE OF A BAD EXAMPLE (written 5 or 6 years ago).

“There goes Mom, being a bad example again...” I heard this from my daughter a year ago or so. I try to be a good example for my kids, although anyone who has been to counseling school or watched Dr. Phil (which is cheaper) knows that to “try” is just not good enough. However, I do try; sometimes it is the best that I can offer.

My friend, let's call her Yvette, who is childless and fancy-free, has decided after about seven years that it is safe to come out of hiding and begin to visit her friends with kids again. One day she popped in to make my re-acquaintance. I was delighted. We got to talking and forgot about the treasure hunt in the woods which had been prepared for us earlier by my husband and son. We were reminded about it after supper. It was a snowy night, yet Yvette and I decided at about 8:00 pm that there was no time like the present and that we should go on the treasure hunt “now or never.” My daughter was ecstatic. We grabbed our just-opened beers and we were off to the deep woods with the treasure map and a head lamp.

“Mom”
“Yes honey?”
“You're not supposed to have alcohol up here.”
“So?”
“It says on the sign, 'no alcoholic beverages,' and beer is alcohol.”
“Well, I'm just having one.”
“You're not supposed to have any.”
“Um, well ... don't worry, it's dark. No one is going to see us...”

At this point my rational mind kicked in and told me what I was doing. I knew that this was the kind of rationalization I might have to pay for later in the teen age years. Horrible guilt-inducing words like “role-model” and “parental modeling” swam through my mind before any alcohol had time to take effect. I knew that this was a “teachable moment” and the lesson was all wrong. I had to take a swig of beer just to silence the voices. I took another gulp and secretly hoped that this conversation would never come up at school of all places. I finally came up with some mumbo-jumbo to tell my daughter about how I had just opened my beer when we decided to take a walk, and I didn't want to waste it, and when they say “no alcoholic beverages” they are really referring to teenagers lighting fires and drinking underage and leaving beer cans all over the mountain ... not a mother having ONE BEER while taking her daughter on a hike past her bed time in the woods at night ...
“it says 90 paces north ... which way is north?”
“Mom.”
“Yes honey?”
“What about the rabid raccoons?”
“Oh. I forgot about that.... well... uh, oh for goodness sake, live
a little. Here's a stick!”

Kids these days are so informed. There are so many things to be conscious about, such as the environment, world hunger, SAFETY. Having kids is like having your superego in overdrive all the time, following you around like a computer looking for breaches in security.

“Alert, alert, rule #457 broken in aisle 5, alert, ALERT...”
“Roger... tasers locked in and on standby...”

It's a good thing that kids are conscious and concerned about things. However having a little fun riding a shopping cart to the car, to me, is not that much of a breech of anything really, except of course it's setting a bad example. I have always told my kids never to ride a shopping cart unless it is carrying more than their weight in groceries. One day I was happily riding a cart loaded with groceries down an ever-so-slight incline. My daughter was mortified at the idea of anyone over 40 doing such a thing. So rather than slowing her pace and having a chance at passing me off as someone else's mother, she started chasing me and hitting me with a shopping flier and yelling hysterically: “why don't you put that in your bad mother book?!!” So much for a pleasant mother-daughter shopping trip. That girl has got to learn the art of fading into the woodwork like I learned to do so well as a child.

Another time, I found myself doing errands with a couple of extra kids. I don't know how many there were, but I remember a lot of limbs protruding from the shopping cart. It was one of those “car” carts which are impossible to steer and sound like a steam train rolling down the cement. I thought it was a good idea to keep everyone in the unwieldy Hannafords cart to nip into the dollarstore, thereby minimizing the transition and keeping my toddler out of the shelves. My daughter,as usual, was mortified. Eventually I had to park the cart, which was not to be navigated successfully in the aisles, and run down to the end of the store. I thought that anyone trying to kidnap this crew would have a struggle on their hands, so I didn't worry too much. Then I heard my daughter's unmistakably loud voice announcing to a line of customers: “This woman isn't my mother. She's my crazy aunt 300 times removed on my Dad's side!” Talk about calling attention to oneself! I made my purchase and slunk out of the store, as much as it was possible to slink under the circumstances, and barreled along to return the cart to Hannafords. As expected, I got a tongue-lashing from my alter ego for speeding.