Try, Try Again

I would like to explain why I think that a perfect parent (or one who tries desperately to appear perfect) is not going to produce the best results in offspring.  Quick illustration – Desperate Housewive’s Bree.  She has one son whose emotions are so stifled that he had no remorse after he ran over an old lady.  Although I did enjoy the development of his character last season, I don’ t think that Andrew would agree that he had the best childhood.  And the other child is a selfish slut who got pregnant sleeping with her friend’s boyfriend.  Not exactly stellar characters there. 

 And while I’m on Desperate Housewives, just a quick sidenote, what’s with the demand for an apology for the so-called racist slur by the character of Susan?  C’mon, that’s called characterization.  Did anyone make the people who created the character of Archie Bunker apologize for his remarks?  Didn’t everyone understand that he was just a well-meaning man whose thoughts were a product of the environment in which he was raised, as the character of Susan is a well-meaning woman who is a product of her, well, ditziness.  She does not truly think that the Phillipines have inferior medical professionals, she just could not adequately express what she was trying to say, that the doctor must be wrong to say that she was experiencing menopause.  This is common for the character of Susan and consistent with her character.  So get over it, people!  If she had said, “Let me see if your degree came from Alabama,” I would not have been offended.  Oh, I’m from Alabama, by the way.  When you look at the big picture, the message society is sending with this is, ‘adultery is o.k., hiring a hitman to kill your girlfriend is blackmailing you to stay with her is o.k., but God forbid that you say anything negative about another culture.’ 

You are probably thinking, “Whoa!  Mama, this is so unrelated to the topic!” but watch how I so artfully tie these two apparently unrelated topics together.  Children thrive when you let them develop in their own way and express their creativity, not stifle it, the way people want to do with the writers of Desperate Housewives.  And I feel that they are not able to thrive if their parents are so bent on doing everything correctly and expecting them to act the same way.

If I never make a mistake, my kids grow up thinking that that is the way that everyone has to be in order to be accepted.  If they struggle with being perfect, and they will, because they do not have years of experience in faking it like adults do, then they are bound to think that something is wrong with them.  They may be filled with self-loathing because of their inability to live up to too high expectations.  They may even give up and stop trying to do anything good. 

On the other hand, if I make mistakes and handle them gracefully, they learn that mistakes are normal, and they are normal if they make them, and still lovable and acceptable members of society.  And they learn by my example how best to handle them.  If one never makes a mistake, how will one know how to deal with it when a mistake is eventually made? 

Same thing with failure.  If you have never failed and then all the sudden fail, how will you know the best way to handle it?  I have done a science experiment with my daughter two times, and each time, I have not gotten the desired result.  I showed disappointment, and then we brainstormed about things that we could do differently to get it to work the next time.  I think that I will wait until this weekend to try it again, both because a) kindergarteners and food coloring do not mix well and b) I will tell J what we are trying to accomplish and what problems we have experienced and ask him to give it a try.  If he solves our problem, imagine how confident he will feel in himself if he did something that I was not able to do.  And if he doesn’t, well, we will just keep trying. 

The experiment seeems pretty simple, which was the reason I chose it.  It is a simple density column.  Dissolve different amounts of sugar into the same amount of water, add different colors of food coloring, and then pour one on top of the other carefully and you should have a rainbow.  But I can’t pour the stupid solutions carefully enough and the colors all mix together.  The first time I decided to try it, we were out of sugar, so I tried salt, and it did not work.  The second time I had gotten a bag or sugar, but we also got sugar cubes, which Vi likes to use when she and her granny have tea parties.  We opted to use the sugar cubes instead of measuring it out of the bag.  I still could not get the colors to keep from mixing together.  I also got packets of Kool-Aid to try so that when we are done, we can drink a rainbow.  Maybe I should try a large glass bowl so that I can get down closer to the water line instead of the pouring from higher up that a glass requires.  We’ll figure it out.  And then I will post of picture of our rainbow in a glass.  And so we learn persistence and practical problem solving. 

Those of you who are keeping up with the daily drama of ‘did Vi get to school on time?’ will be pleased, ok, maybe just a little glad, to know that we arrived right as the bell was ringing.  So she ran inside and I did not have to sign her in, and I drove slowly past Mrs. Principal, standing on the sidewalk, starting her morning silent scolding, and waved hello. 

I set the alarm clock a few minutes early, but failed to take into account that if I feel like I have plenty of time and take my time getting ready, well, that takes a lot longer than normal mornings when I am rushing to get ready.  So it evened out.  But I didn’t have to holler.  As much.  Again with the problem solving.  Try, try again.  And once you think you have things perfected, things will change, and you have to start all over again.  Ah, but the experience is worthwhile.