Life is Whatever Label We Choose to Give It

After a long week of my husband away on business—and me single handedly creating activities for three young children on Winter Break, shuffling two dogs back and forth to the vet to tend to their various ailments of aging, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, cooking and finally getting all three children back into the swing of the school schedule–I heard two of my sweet little ones each say the following: “Why do I have to do everything around here?” Clearly, this was unacceptable and needed to be addressed. Nip it in the bud, I always say. Show ‘em who’s boss. We need to see some respect around here and we need to see it now. And that respect must be shown to the person in charge. Namely: Super Nanny. So, we cuddled up on the couch, me and my three kids, with the drinks and snacks that are not supposed to be eaten in the family room, and I pressed the DVR “play” button knowing full well that the show would take them way past their bedtimes. I figured once they saw how bad behavior looks on TV–once they heard what ungratefulness sounded like coming from an outside source–they would make the connection and forever change their ways. “We are so lucky to have you as our mother,” they would fawn once they saw how nicely our household is run compared to those in need of Super Nanny’s help. Seeing how bad it could really be, they will surely accept—no enjoy–the measly task of stacking the juice boxes instead of laying on the floor in front of an open refrigerator door complaining that they are–and I quote here–“freezing cold and dying from all the work” I was forcing them to do. So there we sat, watching the hour-long episode guaranteed to improve our home life. Where I expected them to see the error of their ways, however, they instead saw that they were doing pretty damn well compared to those monsters on TV. My middle son, as I continued to warm his hands from his juice box stacking job, actually said, “You know mom—when you ask me to do something, I always do it.” I felt closely aligned with the parents–relating to the exhaustion of telling their children yet again that “this is not up for discussion”. I connected with the heightened had-it-ness as they broke up another fight. My heart linked to theirs as the children accused them of lacking in love. Certainly, Super Nanny went to work on the children first. She gave them rules and boundaries and no-questions-asked limitations. But at the end, she sat down with the parents and handed them a stack of labels with a negative character trait written on each—traits the parents had given voice as they described their children to Super Nanny. The parents were instructed to place each label around a picture of the child the trait most represented. Shuffling out “whiney”, “difficult” and “selfish” like Vegas dealers, the task was completed in a matter of seconds. Super Nanny then had the parents rip up the old labels and create new ones with positive traits they found in their children–words like “helpful”, “sweet”, and “organized”–which they placed on the kids themselves. With this exercise, they committed seeing their wonderful children for who they really are, in a new and better light. So, I–the “bad mom who lets her kids stay up past their bedtimes and break the snacking-in-the-family-room rules”–sitting with my “sensitive one” to my left, my “difficult one” to my right and my “four-year-old who already acts like she’s in her teen years” on my lap–realized that I, too, could commit to seeing my children—and myself–in a better light. I could rip up those unnecessary labels and put new, positive ones on them. It’s actually not that hard once I simply decided to do it. And with that, I became a “loving mom who takes the time to cuddle with her kids each night regardless of the stupid rules” with my “incredibly smart and warm-hearted” child on my right, my “happily energetic and wildly funny” one on my left and my “deeply caring and mature beyond her years” baby on my lap. Life is how we look at it…life is whatever label we choose to give it. So what if I had to vacuum the family room three times to get out all the crumbs? My life–and Super Nanny–is damn good. Published in The Broomfield Enterprise, 1/20/08