The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

Credit: William Warby http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/ CC BY-SA 2.0

The Queen Bee has entered into a phase where she really wants to test the boundaries. What Sebastian the crab said of teenagers applies to my little pre-K student: you give them an inch, they swim all over. Often, if she is well-behaved, we'll watch an episode of Seinfeld before she goes to bed. (Her favorite episode is The Airport.) Before the episode is over, she is asking if we can watch another one when the current episode is finished--trying to get out of going to bed, that one is.

She also doesn't quite believe the rules apply to her. Before I finished the first paragraph of this post, I had to set her in the Angry Chair because she was disobeying me. She walked up to where I am sitting at the kitchen table and knocked over her half-full juice box. I set it up and told her not to knock over the juice box. Of course, her immediate response was to knock over the juice box. Four minutes in the Angry Chair followed by a discussion on why she needs to obey her parents.

Sometimes she lies.

Noticing the bathroom closet is awry I'll ask her, "Did you get into the bathroom closet?" She responds, without trying to hide the hair supplies she confiscated from the closet, "No."

"Who did?" I ask.

"I think maybe it was mommy," She says.

Four minutes in the Angry Chair.

It gets exhausting. I hate constantly correcting her, constantly reinforcing the boundaries, constantly setting her in the Angry Chair. The truth is, sometimes I skip the punishment. I'm too tired. Just put the scissors back in the drawer and don't do anything else that requires parenting! I go through phases where I'm very diligent about reprimanding my daughter and then I go through phases where it's just enough to get her to move on to the next shenanigan.

This is what it means to be a parent, though. I know this. This is how it is going to be for a long time. And, in the future, I'm sure money will be involved: paying for broken windows, dented cars...paying off bookies (who knows what type of mischief this child will get into when she's older). I love her too much to let her be disrespectful, to let her lie, to let her break the rules. My hope is that all of this shapes her into a beautiful, loving woman who blesses creation with her life.

That's not to say there isn't a lot of joy in my life--the Queen Bee is a hoot! But there is a lot of weariness in parenting, in guiding someone forward in life. It's a marathon I know we will both win in the end. No matter how much she hates it now. No matter how weary I become.