Tue 12 May
2009
SUPER HARD ASS
There a days when it’s not so easy being Dad. Those are the days when Dad has to lay down the law, and let his little ones know that what they did, or what they have been doing, is not to be tolerated.
The Little Man was conducting several mini-revolts yesterday. It was the run of the mill five-year-old stances that are made by millions of five year old’s every day. He decided to not listen. Not so much in defiance, but, I think, more so because of laziness.
Several weeks ago, Harp and I took the kids out for dinner at a semi-posh Thai-Japanese restaurant. To say the kids thought the place was a McDonald’s playground was an understatement. I suppose it’s to be expected. They are, after all, three and five. It’s just that, Harp and I were confident that the table manners and proper respect we’d been teaching them would be employed.
The manners and respect weren’t, and Harp and I found ourselves not enjoying the evening as much.
Much the same has continued over the weeks, poor table manners, messy hands, refusing to listen, fighting with each other. So, last night I had had enough. Another bone of contention, The Little Man’s bedtime, is at 9.00pm. But he’s been cunningly stretching it to 9.45pm, or thereabouts. He does this by drinking his milk late, drinking it slowly, and then drinking it with each sip coming from a spoon. Or even slipping in a “have to go to the washroom” break that lasts for ten minutes.
When I saw this happening again. I stirred his milk for him, told him he had five seconds to gulp that thing down, with whatever that was left going down the sink, that as soon as those five seconds were up, he was going to head straight to his room and would NOT be tucked in. And that if he didn’t comply a certain butt was going to get a swift kick.
It’s not that the kids have been completely insane. Hell, real-life TV programs easily remind us of how lucky we are with our kids. It’s the slow erosion, the little chipping away of the rules that they are so good at.
So yesterday, I became the hard-ass Dad. The thing that sucks about this is that I know I have to be super hard-ass for a while now. At least until the kids realize, that this erosion-chipping crap has to stop.
* sigh *
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