My New Golden Rule

Since infancy, Sophie has hated the bath. People have told me it will get better as she gets older. It hasn’t. At four, she still has a strong aversion to the indignity of being washed; experiences hair washing as physical pain; pulls her limbs from me as I try to soap them up. I’ve found ways to help her cope: I don’t do it every day. I give her fair warning. She can select toys she wants to have in the tub, and I set the timer to allow her some play time. When I can no longer delay the actual washing, I tell her stories or sing to her as I scrub. Most of the time this makes it tolerable for both of us. Some of the time, there is no amount of preparation, no degree of sugar-coating it that will make it palatable.

This was one of those times.

“Sophia, it’s time for a bath.” She was downstairs playing Beauty and Friendly Beast with Kevin, while I was filling the tub.

“I’m not coming!” I hear Kevin say gently, “Come on, Sophie,” and her feet on the steps. Once upstairs, she stomps into her bedroom and slams the door.

“Get in here. Now.” She appears in the doorway, her hands on her hips in a defiant posture.”

“I don’t need a bath.”

I am not arguing this point. It is most definitely time. “Sophia, take off the princess dress.”

“No. I won’t.”

“If you don’t take it off yourself, I’m going to take it off of you.”

“No! Don’t touch my dress!” She runs into her room. I make chase. Unfortunately, I’m under a time constraint. I have to get this done before she goes down for a nap and I have to leave the house.

“I’m going to count to three!” I warn.

“I said I’m not taking off the dress!”

“ONE....”

“NO MOMMY!”

“TWO....”

“STOP COUNTING!”

“THREE!” I begin to rip the princess dress off her body. I’m all jacked up on adrenaline now. She’s pulling it down as I’m trying to wrestle it over her head, so I grab her pearls instead.

“DON”T TOUCH MY PEARLS! YOU’LL BREAK THEM!”

“Then take them off yourself.” I say, trying, trying, trying to stay in control.

“Noooooo!” I pull the elastic band of beads over her head. She grabs for them and I seize the opportunity to remove the dress.

At last. Down to the underwear. She grasps the elastic waistband and pulls it up to her chest, giving her the most painful wedgie I’ve ever seen. “Don’t touch my underwear! IT’S PART OF MY BODY!” The way she is pulling them, they have become part of her body.

I slide her feet out from under her, take her down on the bath mat, making sure her head doesn’t hit the floor, and work the panties off her. Then, I pick up her naked body and deposit her in the tub. Her limbs churn the water, instantly soaking me and the floor.

“Sophia. I’m warning you. Stop it RIGHT NOW. If you want to keep your toys in the tub, you need to stop.”

She continues to thrash, brandishes a bowl and threatens, “I’m going to dump water on you!”

“Give me that,” I say, taking it from her. She raises a large plastic water wheel over her head, about to chuck it at me. I take that too. “Now you’ve lost your toys. What a shame.” I tell her.

She goes into a blind rage. A tidal wave rises up and sloshes out of the tub. I’m soaked again. I glance at the clock. I’m supposed to be out of here in 15 minutes.

This is when I lose it. I pick up the pitcher that I use to rinse her hair. “Knock it off NOW, or I’m going to dump water on you.” I am hopeful that, like cats who are fighting, one douse will end it all.

She continues to churn the water with her legs. I dump.

She’s in shock. “Mommy! You got water in my eyes! You’re hurting me.” Then, she kicks again, only harder. I do it again. She screams, still kicking, “Let me calm down! Let me calm calm down!”

I really hope, one day, she isn’t going to be talking about this in therapy.

I pull the shower curtain closed so that she can continue to flail without soaking me, and, perhaps we can both calm down. I take a deep breath.

I am really, really tempted to spank her naughty bottom. I see how parents get to this point. Low on sleep, on patience, on time it’s easy to be gripped by rage. To let it get the best of you. To incite you to do things in a calmer, saner moment, you never would.

This is not how I want things to be, between us. This is not what I want to teach her. To model.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have done that. I lost my temper. That was wrong.” I wait a moment and then I say it again, “I’m sorry, Sophia.” I am sitting here, hoping she will take a little personal responsibility for her role in the fight.

I expect a lot from her, I know. She is only four.

“I’m not ready yet.” The curtain says back.

“Fair enough.” I reply. “Just let me know when you are.”

“Maybe in a few minutes.” I call the person I’m meeting to let her know, I’ll be late. Working this through is the most important thing I could possibly doing right now. Conflict is inevitable. Repair is essential.

The curtain says, “Okay. I’m ready now.”

I draw it back. Sophie is sitting there, eyes red, tears clinging to her face, “You hurt me,” she accuses.

“I am sorry I dumped water on you Sophia. I shouldn’t have done that. It was not nice. But, don’t forget, you had a part in this, too.” I raise my eyebrows.

“I’m sorry too, Mommy. It’s just that I wasn’t ready. I wanted to play more with Daddy.” I know. I know.

“Sophia, you’re going to be with Daddy the rest of the afternoon. You’ll have plenty of time to play with him.” She seems cheered by this.

“Okay. You can wash me now. But can you tell me a story?”

I tell her the story of what just happened between us, using this moment “There once was a little girl who never wanted to talk a bath....”

The story has a moral: Do unto mother...as you would have your mother do unto you.

Mean Mommy

We are late for nursery school. Again. Sophia is refusing to put on her sweater. Since I have already told her that she needs to put on the sweater, even though whether or not she wears the sweater is really not a big deal to me, I feel I can’t back down.

Kevin and I had a parenting discussion the other night. He noted that I have been some bargaining with Sophia: setting a boundary and then letting her negotiate me down from it. It’s true, I do this, particularly in front of others because I don’t like appearing like such a hard-ass all the time.

But when I’m alone, and there is no one I feel I need to appear sweet and understanding in front of, I turn into Mean Mommy.

Thus, when Sophia tells me, “I am NOT putting on that sweater.” I say, “Oh yes you are,” stick her in the depression formed by my crossed legs and thrust each of her arms into a sleeve. As I reach in front of her to fasten a button, she gets an arm free and hits me.

Yes. My daughter hits me.

I see red. “YOU DO NOT HIT,” I yell, remembering with shame that I used to say I couldn’t imagine ever yelling at Sophia. “YOU NEED TO GO CALM DOWN!” Why am I still yelling?

Because I need calm-down time.

I pick her up. She’s kicking and bucking in my arms as I carry her to the bedroom, drop her in her toddler bed, and tell her, “Take a few minutes to calm down.”

“I need Snakey-Pie to calm down!” she sobs.

I give her Snakey-Pie, turn out the light, close the door and go to the living room to take a few deep breaths.

I lost it that time. I am deeply disturbed by the fact that, sometimes, more and more frequently, I don’t enjoy parenting. Maybe because I’m constantly feeling like I’m the heavy. Setting boundary after boundary. Making her bathe, dress, comb her hair, eat, go places—do thing after thing that, in the moment, she just doesn’t feel like doing. The deep breaths aren’t working. I start to cry.

What is happening?

It’s true that for the past three years most conflict between Sophie and me was preventable. I made sure she was well-rested, adequately-fed, appropriately dressed…and she went with the flow.

But now, suddenly she is getting her Own Ideas. She wants to do what she wants to do.
For example, it’s hard for Sophia to conceive of a future that is better than the present. She’d rather stay right here and read books than go through the trouble of donning her sweater, boots, coat, hat and gloves to get in the car and drive half-an-hour to nursery school. Even if they are acting out Goldilocks and the Three Bears today, one of her most favorite stories.

And though that makes sense to me, it’s not acceptable.

So I push through her resistance, physically making her do what I want her to do, feeling a mix of sorrow and resentment: How long do I have to keep doing this? When will it be fun again?

I have to remind myself: feeling utterly powerless, children crave power. But once they have it, they don’t know what to do with it. It feels all wrong, terrifying. If I want her to feel in control of herself, I have to be in control of myself. Of her. Of us.

Right now, I don’t feel in control.

As her will grows more formidable, her ideas more expansive, as she begins to assert herself in the world, I , who was her primary playmate have become her primary combatant. This is hard to come to terms with. I’m still the same; why does she have to change?

I try to reframe it in terms of what she needs. I can remember how much happier my students were when I held the boundaries, stood firm, gave them something they could push back on, but not push over. I need to reach deeper, to find something stronger, to stop taking this so damn personally. I need to act from what I know to be true and not what I want to be true.

I retrieve her from her room. She is contrite and compliant. At nursery school, she gets to be Goldilocks. At the end of the day, she is happy and spent. We are driving home when Sophie suddenly says, “I could also be your mommy.”

“Oh?” I say, glancing into the rear view mirror, “What would you do if you were my mommy?”

“Take care of you,” she says, simply.



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