Zoë Is a Pill Sometimes

Today I won the mommy Nobel Peace Prize. Zoë was in a foul mood because I was busy washing dishes and wouldn't play in her room, and offered the following:
"When are you going to be thin mommy again?"
"Well, I can't go on a diet until I stop nursing MeiMei, but not too long from now. Why?"
"I'm bored with fat mommy because you're ugly."
Did I slap her, Dear Reader? No. I calmly explained that that was a mean thing to say and  that it hurt mommy's feelings, and invited her to consider how she would feel if one of her friends at school said she was ugly. "Bad." When she started complaining about how her dollhouse wasn't as good as Sophia's I told her to go mope in her room if she wanted to be Miss Negative. I'm only going to remind her about this for the rest of her life.

Comments

[Russell Arben Fox]

Good response, Belle. I figure that manners can only be taught by reptition and example; it's taxing, constantly having to correct one's kids when they're being mean or cruel or foolish, but there's no way around it.

Yesterday was Caitlyn's birthday; she turned five. Caitlyn has regularly been our morose, depressed child, which is really kind of funny (if exhausting) in a preschooler. "Caitlyn, did you like your party?" "No. The cake was dry. I didn't get anything I wanted. Nothing has gone right. You didn't plan a good party." Etc., etc. We love her, but I admit she gets sent to her room for an attitude adjustment pretty regularly.

[Anthony Smith]

Wow, I'm sorry about that.

Shortly after my parents got divorced my Dad and Grandpa taught me that my mom "was a bitch," and that I should tell her. I didn't know what that word meant, of course, so I told my mom and she bawled her eyes out.

She still tells me that story today.

[Susan]

It's good to learn a workable response to "I hate you, Mommy" now, if you haven't already. The first time I heard it from my ?five-year-old son, I bawled my eyes out. Boy, did THAT guarantee a quick repeat. Quick thinker that I am, the next time I just said, "I'm really sorry to hear that, because I love _you_ very much. Well, maybe you'll change your mind someday." Having expected a repeat performance, the crestfallen look on his face was worth a thousand spankings and time-outs, and he never said it again. And now I'm a child therapist (really :-)

[Russell Arben FoxRusseRll ArbRen Fox]

Geez, Anthony, what a terrible memory. Divorced parents that set their kids against one another are about as low as it gets.

[anon]

Re: I hate you mommy. Sadly, you may get your own back some day. Just spent approx. a month of 12 hour days at my mom's bedside in the hospital, with many reminders of my children telling me they hated me.

Two weeks of that month Mom was delirious and believed she was being held under duress. (Some combo. of stroke after-effects, medication for seizure, UTI and being confined in bed). There were several episodes in which she demanded to go home and told all of us children that we were untrustworthy, hateful, and that she never thought she'd see us do such terrible things to her.

I got through these periods by telling her that when we were little and told her we didn't love her, she didn't let it affect doing the things she knew were for our own good, even if it made us angry. She seemed to hear that through the delusions, at least in part.

[bitchphd]

Kudos for focusing on "ugly" as the hurtful part of the sentence and not "fat." She'll grow up to thank you for that some day. Unless, of course, she says it again and you murder her.

[John]

Congragulation on getting Mommy Nobel Peace Prize.

[Jeremy Osner]

That's an interesting new form of Spam.