One of my daughters got into some big trouble for extreme sassiness and overall attitudinal transgressions this week. As a result, I lost the privilege of having friends to dinner and was forced to refrain from watching the movie I wanted to see with my husband. What’s that you say? I should not have been punished on account of her misbehavior, which I had nothing to do with? Correct! However, here is the problem: There is a law in parenting that no one likes to discuss. This law plays into every parental disciplinary equation ever formulated. When you justly punish your children, you almost always also end up making your own life a little more miserable.
The scientific community had this figured out long ago and cautioned all of us parents when they recognized the Second Law of Thermodynamics: In every circumstance where energy is transferred from one body to another, some small amount of usable energy will be converted to unusable energy. The more unusable energy that exists in the world, the more disorder (scientifically characterized as “entropy”) we’ll have in the universe. In other words, you cannot unleash a giant can o’ whoop ass on your very naughty child without converting some of the positive energy in your family to useless energy and that useless energy unequivocally sucks for everyone, including you. Screw you thermodynamics. You make me mad.
I first discovered this law when my children were but toddlers. At that age, my children loved Elmo like a mosquito loves a blood drive. That clueless, easily-amused, red-headed monster was their daily treat and their desired best friend for life. Sometimes, when they had engaged in one too many tantrums, I had to take away the privilege of watching Sesame Street. “No Elmo” was their worst and most vicious fear. “No Elmo” threats were a very effective tool in my mama arsenal. However, secretly, I loathed “No Elmo” days as much as they did. “No Elmo” was a torture chamber for me in which, by five p.m., my nerves felt stretched to the point of insanity.
Without Elmo, none of us got that precious hour of downtime in which no one cried or pooped their pants. Elmo made it possible for me to read or eat a meal without interruption at least once a day. Elmo was my homeboy and co-parent in every way and I loved him so much that I would’ve taken a bullet for that furry little nutbag. However, I had to hide this fact from my children because my parenting power depended upon it.
The same is true now that I have teenagers. I hate taking away their phones with the burning heat of a thousand suns. When I have confiscated my daughter’s phone, I cannot then call her after school when she has stayed too long talking with friends and I am starting to worry. My parental freak out meter goes way up! I also cannot send a text to her bedroom from my kitchen when dinner is ready because that is actually the best way to reach her (Yes. I do it and you do too so stop looking at me like that). Moreover, she cannot check her math homework with her friends over FaceTime and my husband ends up doing so at midnight with his head in his hands and weary resignation in his heart.
Can I also tell you that grounding a teenager means that you are slightly grounded? To explain, I’ll just go over the events of last weekend. We took away my daughter’s phone, grounded her and canceled her sleepover that night with her friend Emily. The next day, I was making a giant batch of shredded taco meat when I realized, “Hey, I’d like to have my good friend’s family over for dinner! I have enough food for everyone because I have gone full, raging carnivore with the amount of meat I cooked!” But I couldn’t have my friend over because….sob…Emily is her daughter. I had just told my daughter that part of her punishment was no time with Emily. That also meant that I could not see my friend and her family! Son of a street taco! What a raw deal for me! “Well,” my husband and I thought, “How about we just go see that new movie we’ve been dying to see?” We couldn’t! You see, my daughter was a real mess that day. She hardly ever gets severely punished. That afternoon, she was curled up on her bed, hair ragged, face puffed like a balloon, voice quiet as a mouse. I just couldn’t bring myself to walk out the door and leave her alone all curled up in a ball of regret. However, I also couldn’t offer her any real fun because she was still in the doghouse. So, we stayed with her that day — a couple of middle-aged grounded people wondering why parenting is so ridiculously hard when you do it right.
If I were to write a parenting handbook, I would clearly lay out this whole law of punishment as a warning to new parents. Here is what I would say: “Welcome to parenthood. Yes, the umbilical cord is cut, but do not think for one second that you can do anything to your child without it having an effect on you. You are a family now. A family is a living, interconnected organism. You know how your child soils his or her diaper and then you live with the stink for a bit until you can get it changed? Well, that little metaphor will keep repeating itself in your life for the next eighteen or so years. Prepare to be placed in time out for bad behavior. Prepare to have your toys taken away. Know that you will be grounded fairly often for things you didn’t do. Who is the terrible person that will be heaping these punishments upon your head? You! You will do it to yourself.” Parenting, guys. It’s so easy!
Kelley dean says
Amy, you hit the nail on the head (as usual )? sooo true and it gets harder as they get older!
Lauren says
Loved it Amy!