Family Matters, Week of 8-20-06

Every week I write about my family. Welcome to it.

I've Created A Monster

To preface this story, we must first set the scene.

Imagine this: You are a married woman with two children. Your brother needs a baby sitter for his two young boys, EPox who is three (name obv. changed), and TRex who is only a few months old. Together these children represent a four-day workload for you. You keep them from 7:45AM to 3PM or so.

So with that said, Ericka took on these children and the early mornings and the new frustrations but encountered a problem: Children seem to destroy and pick on each other exponentially. The more children in an enclosed space, the more rowdy and somewhat vicious they may become.

Now, as you can imagine, speaking of anyone's children beyond your own is risky business. I'll tread lightly.

Let's just say that as time went on both sets of children (sans the wee TRex) could pester each other effectively. Hitting, kicking, pushing, the whole bit. Not constantly, but kids are kids, etc.

So what does this father do? He tries to explain the concept of self defense. I spoke to Annie about it on Wednesday night.

Note: Even as I type this out it sounds ridiculous, but I assure my heart was in the right place.

"Annie, if someone hits you, you may hit them back, but only if they hit you first and only if it's not your sister." Her sister is much younger as you may know and EPox and her were going at each other's throats.

This, of course, was nothing short of a disaster. I'm shaking my head in shame even as I type this.

The next day Ericka calls me and leaves me a voice mail: "Evan, I need you to call me. You've created Muhammad Ali's daughter--"

I hung up. I didn't need to hear anymore. Suddenly I had realized my mistake. Four year olds just don't get subtlety.

"Ericka?" I say as she picks up. Kids are crying in the background.

"Evan, I...Annie has been going off all day."

I explain to her the whole self-defense bit. I had (unfortunately) forgotten to inform her of my conversation with Annie.

"Evan," she said, "I heard them in there earlier. Annie beat the shit out of EPox."

"Oh my God, is he okay?"

"Annie come in here with a scratch on her back and she in turn scratched his face..." Oh boy... "And the next thing I hear is Annie pummeling the kid and now he's got a busted lip."

And, just for the folks at home, this is obviously not what I intended that whole "Don't let people push you around and stick up for yourself" chit-chat to accomplish.

A sinking feeling comes over me. I know I've made a bad parental mistake and now I must fix it.

I come home and Annie does her usual scream of "Daddy's home!" and the post-scream hug. I sit her down.

"Annie, remember what I told you last night? About hitting other people who hit you first?"

She nods.

"Well baby, firstly I told you not to do that to your sister, which you did." She suddenly can't meet my gaze. "Then I hear about you busting EPox's lip. That is very bad Annie." She tries to pull away. "Listen to me honey, I'm telling you right now that if someone pushes you or hurts you, tell mommy right away. Do not hit them back. Do you understand?"

"But what about what you said last night?"

"Well honey, you have a little growing up to do before we go back there. Do not hit anyone back, tell your mother instead. Are we clear?"

She pouted and asked again about what I had told her. I apologized and said I was wrong and told her to always come straight to her mother.

And I, of course, get the indignity of a failed parental overture. I had tried to teach a concept that had alluded even myself for a long time--sticking up for one's self--but I pushed it too early. Four years old is not the age of fighting back, it's the age of tattle-tales.

And, for all of its stigma, and how much we drill into children not to be a tattle-tale, I guess those people never realized what happens when you let that genie out of the bottle: You get a busted lip and a lot of explanations.

For a kid not even four and a half years old, perhaps it'd be better to keep up the tattling for awhile.

And perhaps look into a career in boxing.

Until next week you wacky readers...

Stories and cigarettes ruin lives of lesser girls
And I wanna know, cause I want you to know