It was a typical morning and I shared the bathroom vanity mirror with my daughter. She brushed, I flossed.
"Should I floss during meetings?" I asked.
She shook her head. It wasn't a yes or no shake. It was the kind of shake that was good-natured disgust not quite eyeroll-worthy.
"I mean it," I said. "If you sat through as many meetings as I do, and added up all the time wasted, you'd be thinking of ways to multi-task and put that time to better use."
She spat into the sink. Of course, a girl brushing her teeth has to spit in the sink, but I sensed a little extra projection in the spit, a condescension, a ribbon of toothpaste and saliva that shot out as if to say, I'm slightly amused by your silly ideas, but I won't give you the satisfaction of showing it.
I had to make a decision. Would I go for the laugh or lapse back into Dad mode, which is defined as a combination of "humorless" and "endless persistence in being all wise, knowing and right."
So I turned the moment into a lesson.
"Flossing is good hygiene," I said. "And good hygiene is impressive."
"True," said my 7th grader. "Hygiene is impressive, but only if it's like oh, I like the fresh smell of that raspberry shampoo. But flossing in front of others is so..."
She couldn't finish her sentence.
"You want to say hillbilly," I said. "But you can't, because they don't have teeth."
She laughed. Genuinely, sweetly. I've heard her laugh sneeringly and mockingly, and this wasn't anywhere near it. This was laughter as a meadow of flowers, laughter as soul vitamin, laughter as camaraderie, laughter as a 2-second picnic.
And I should've just gone back to bed, because there's nothing in my work day that could ever top that. And nothing did.
Every day it's like this, a tug-of-war. Part of me wants to be like fashioned child-rearing authority & psychologist John Rosemond, whose popular "Bill of Rights for Children" includes:
Article Nine: Children have the right to learn early in their lives that obedience to legitimate authority is not optional, that there are consequences for disobedience, and that said consequences are memorable and therefore persuasive.
The other part of me wants to be George Carlin, whose revision of the Ten Commandments includes:
"HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER: Obedience, respect for authority. Just another name for controlling people. The truth is that obedience and respect shouldn't be automatic. They should be earned and based on the parent's performance. Some parents deserve respect, but most of them don't, period."
I'll never forget how I shuddered when the first time I read these words by Roald Dahl: "To children, all grown-ups are like giants, who tell them what to do all the blooming time!"I sit there helping them with homework, an activity that gives their teachers the authority to not only gobble up their days but also their nights, and I'm thinking how working in an office all days while having to trot them through their math and science each night gobbles up my day, too.
All said and done, that morning laugh is still the highlight of my day. And lest you think I'm saccharine, remember, we had that laugh at the expense of others!
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