Four Things My Kid Said About Me

Last night, my kid asked me to say three things that describe her, and we decided I would say three good things (I said four) and then one thing that’s not so good. Then, I don’t remember if I asked her, or if she decided to flip it over about me.

I was worried, because I always think I’m better at my work, which I’ve been doing longer, than my parenting, which I *do* for longer, but am always feeling like I’m failing at, and you don’t know whose standards (of course your own!) to hold yourself up to, to know if you’re doing well. I felt trepidation, more than any student evaluation or peer review. This was my child reviewing me.

And I’m surprised at what she ended up saying about me.

First, she said that I am “not too strict a parent”. This is kind of like when students call my class an “easy A”, but it can also be students who appreciate my flexibility I guess. I guess this is a good thing, it’s good she appreciates it, but I don’t know if I would have said it as the FIRST thing haha

Second, she said that I give her a lot of things she wants (gah, I’m spoiling her? she’s an only child) and I give other people, too. This, I kind of liked. That she liked about me not only that I gave to her, but that I also gave to others. I hope in that way that I’m a role model of giving, because it’s a really important part of my identity, and I’m glad she sees it.

Third – this was the shocker for me – she said I was “joyful”. I was like…. wow, who me? And then I’m like, wait, but where did you hear this expression (she reads and watches and listens to a lot of stuff in English, so it’s possible she came across it somewhere) – and then I’m like, “Oh, did you get this from the Brene Brown Netflix thing we’ve been watching?” (we’ve been watching A Call to Courage which you can find on Netflix and she’s been loving it – and it has a part towards the end about how vulnerability, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, can lead us to joy).

I’m most surprised by her choice of “joyful” because this is after 18 months of stress of a pandemic, where I worked a lot, stressed a lot, and I don’t know if I’ve been particularly joyful but I think I’ve been trying – and I know that gratitude journaling (which we only do orally each night, but we talk about throughout the day) has been particularly helpful. It occurred to me recently that in the Quran there is a saying (in several different places) that translates as “And if you thank [God], [We]will give you more” (where “We” is not plural but the formal/grandizing singular used to refer to God/Allah).

Alright – now onto the thing that she doesn’t like about me, and I was expecting something around my anger or shouting, which I know I do too much of, or about my inattention sometimes, but she said two more subtle things:

1. “You jump to conclusions sometimes” – which seems to me a nuanced way of telling me about the times I was quick to anger and I was *wrong*, not in general. Like, she doesn’t mind if I get angry when she is actually doing something wrong, but she is upset about the times when I judge before knowing the whole story. And she’s so right. And I can be like that in life, too, just not so much with my students where I’m so intentional not to do that. Why can’t I do that with my child?
2. I asked her about inattention, and she said “no, you pay me plenty of attention, but you need to give more attention to yourself”. I was floored. Really? Is my own child teaching me about self-care? Is that really true? I told her “Really, I give you enough attention?” (I’m a sucker) but then she also elaborated a little on it and said, “occasionally I want your attention and you’re not fully focused with me while I’m trying to tell you something” (which, yes, guilty) but she doesn’t see it as a general inattention towards her, so I’m glad.

Yeah… so that was our conversation last night… and I’m thinking… I had a whole week of back to f2f teaching and I’ve been tweeting about it and stuff, was expecting to blog about it, but it’s this convo with my daughter that compelled me to blog. How have your conversations with your kids been, recently?

P.S. the title of this post is 4 things but she actually said 5 things 🙂 haha

Featured Image by Radoan Tanvir from Pixabay