We are entering the season of Halloween costumes, Cyber Monday deals, and Christmas consumerism. Whenever my children get the “I wants”, the standing joke in our house is, “yeah and mom wants a million dollars and obedient children.” I may have said this a few thousand times in their short lives. Fighting an all consuming never ending ocean tide of entitlement and largess in their young lives has been a parenting mantra over the last two decades. Teaching obedience has been a trickier concept for me.

One of the the last time we argued about obedience, all wrapped up in my snark, I went to Amazon and searched for “obedient children”. I will show them! I can buy obedient children and get Prime shipping too! After all, you can buy anything on Amazon, right? The scariest thing happened to me when I hit search. A video about Hitler Youth was at the top of my search results. Holy Moly! I told my oldest son (the person with whom I argue most about obedience) about my search results and he said, “duh mom. That makes total sense.”  “Elaborate my young Padawan,” I asked and we had an interesting 45 second exchange which left me contemplating how best to mold and guide these now six-foot tall adolescents now that “make me” isn’t a viable option. 

It’s not really obedience I seek, is it? I really want rational thought and respect for others and impulse control. Obedience is one’s personal surrender to God in all things. Why would I want my boys to ever surrender their best judgment to anyone else’s unless in their own evaluation they determine someone else may know better?  When I say, “Because I said so” (sometimes, still a good answer), what I really mean is, “Because I made that mistake myself and it took a long time to undo so save yourself some drama and just believe me.” Alas this answer is no good either and not because it’s wordy, but because it’s selfish. Making mistakes is how we learn. 

The real test is finding the line between (a) what is truly dangerous when I truly need unquestioning follow-through and (b) please just make it easy on you and me because I don’t want to parent right now. “Don’t run in traffic” or “don’t go back in a burning building” are fairly straight-forward type A commands. The want of “just do it because I would really like a well mannered compliant child today to participate with love and harmony in this daily struggle we call a Family” is a justifiable (b) answer, but a (b) answer none the less. Honestly I live for the second option because the first option on a regular basis is super scary. I never want my children living in a fight or flight existence all the time. It doesn’t take the mountain of research that exists out there to tell me that living in either/or moments is terrifying and unhealthy for parent and child alike. However, compliance with my every command turns “warning, danger” into white noise.

It has taken me forever to figure this out. Most days I still forget. Most days my life, like the world, has a continually shifting line. Perfect example: Why is it important not to fight, but in the same breath, don’t give in to a bully? What kind of line is that? How many times have I said to one child, “don’t hit your brother” and to the other child, “you want to make him stop, hit him back.” Hellloooo mixed messages. Or “don’t call your brother stupid” and five minutes later, “son to be so smart that sure was stupid.” Both statements are true, and yet, how confusing for my children. I’ve got nothing for you dear readers except mea culpa. I’m parenting wrong almost all the time. Truly most days I’m just trying to keep us all alive and unmaimed and develop a few self-help skills along the way. 

Maybe that’s why humans have such a long adolescence? It takes a decade of rage-inducing obstinate defiance of all things to learn that obedience is tricky. What I really want my children to learn is how to carefully deliberate between what they need and what they would like to have–in their lives. My job isn’t to raise unquestioning obedience to me, it’s to inspire surrender to God and teach good judgment for all other things. I’ll never have a million dollars and obedient children and I think I’m eventually going to be okay with that. The next time I whip out “because I said so” and they say “that’s not a real answer” I’m going to try to remember to say, “so what’s a real answer?” That oughta fix them. 

Send me your one liners that inspire harmony and helpfulness. I’m fresh out. Love Y’all.