My Daughter's Ears Are Pierced, I Can Sleep Now!
My daughter got her ears pierced on Friday. To some families it's not a big deal and to others it's a right of passage during youth. In our family, it was something that took on its own life form. It was a big deal because I wanted it to be a big deal. I sort of arbitrarily chose this as something that should be "special" and that she should "earn." Yes, earn. My husband and I are flawed parents. I want to stress this, we love our kids, have their best interests in mind every day, but we are certain that we screw up something with at least one of them probably on a daily basis.
With that being said, there are a few values that we are trying to instill in them, no different from anyone else. The one at the top of our list is having good manners. I'm from the south and people down south still say "yes, ma'am" and "no, thank you sir" and they hold the door open for each other and neighbors say "hey" to one another and that’s the way it is supposed to be. I have not forced "ma'am and sir" down my kids' throats because, well, you have to go with the geographical flow. I'm proud that my daughter has never gone anywhere with any other parent and not gotten rave reviews for how she behaves. My two-year-old seems to be following in her footsteps. He says "thank you" unprompted when someone gives him something and "bless you" when you sneeze.
My three-year-old, the family wildcard, I need to attach a disclaimer to. I often have to remind him to say please and thank you and to not stick his tongue out at people. I have resigned myself to the fact that this child that I longed for, my adorable Wyatt, will be the one who puts every grey hair on my head. Unfortunately for my other two "nice" children, I will be forced to use up 70% of my energy on him to achieve this, and frankly, any goal as I am slightly more stubborn than he is. I'm not sure I’m going to ever realize when I'm in a battle of diminishing returns with him.
Another on our list is learning what it means to earn something. My husband talks about a friend of his who came from a family of four and his parents didn't give allowances, the kids earned their allowances. But it was even more than an allowance. As the kids got older, it was a money management endeavor. They had age appropriate chores that they had to do on a daily basis and if they didn't do them, they’d get docked. They couldn’t trade their chores with a sibling, so if it was their night to do the dishes, they had better be home after dinner.
At the end of the month they'd get their "paycheck" and it had to last them for the next month. They had to use this money not only for the things they wanted to do like going out on the weekends, but for bigger things like buying those cool new Air Jordans. The kids aren't allowed to borrow against next month and if they run out of money on the 15th, well, that means they're going to have a pretty boring last two weeks until payday.
I love this idea. The reason I love it is because it's about more than managing money, which is incredibly valuable. But it's also about responsibility, managing time, and not having everything given to kids just because they ask for it.
That's how I got to Peyton "earning" her ear piercing. I wasn't going to start the allowance scheme, but instead I tried something different. She began hounding me when she was five to get her ears pierced. There were a few reasons I wanted her to wait, one of which is she's a huge hypochondriac and is constantly complaining that something on her person is hurting. I feared that if she experienced actual pain via the metal bullets being shot through her earlobes it might likely kill her. But the main reason I wanted to wait is, I wanted her to feel like it was special and that she had earned it, not by earning money, but by showing me she was responsible for herself.
I feel like we, and I'm including myself in this collective we, tend to take the special out of our kids' lives by giving them stuff all the time. And more importantly, they do not appreciate the value...(cont)
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