Well Excuse Me!

Recently, I was pretty stunned to realize that my daughter has reached that inevitable age in which she considers her mother both a servant and an annoyance. I guess the reason I was so surprised is that I assumed she would always want me to help her with things. Of course she does want my help sometimes, but lately it seems she wants the service without any strings attached. I’m starting to feel like a drive-thru restaurant, especially when I make her a glass of milk and ask for a kiss, she takes the milk and says no to the kiss like it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.

She has also decided that I’m supposed to be quiet while she’s watching her videos. Gee, I wouldn’t want to speak and make her miss a part she’s seen three hundred times now would I? It’s enough to make any mother feel like hired help on borrowed time. At first, I thought it was kind of funny, you know, the idea that she’s too busy to get her own milk or stop for a kiss and she shouldn’t be interrupted while watching her videos. Then, for a while, I thought it was kind of interesting that she had reached a point where she thought so much of herself and her time. She decided her own importance and I thought that was kind of cute. Well, I’ve stopped laughing and pondering what mental achievement she may have made and now, I’m just downright annoyed.

Part of me is glad that she’s making decisions about her own self worth, but the other, mommy part of me is both hurt and angry for being relegated to the position of maid-in-waiting. I can’t honestly say I didn’t see it coming because I knew she was starting to assert more independence, but I kept falling back to whatever preconceived ideas I had about her growth. I figured she wouldn’t ever reach that bossy, sassy little girl phase because she’s so different and special. Not only did I figure wrongly, I blinded myself to the whirlwind that was coming and now that it’s here I’m not at all prepared to deal with it.

On the one hand, I don’t want to quash her feelings of self worth and esteem, but on the other hand I don’t want her to think she can be a bossy, spoiled brat for the rest of her life either. So, I did what I always do when I’m up against the wall with a parenting situation, I fought the urge to call my own mother and ask for advice. I spent several days thinking about it and came up with sn approach and if it didn’t work, I was definitely going to be open to suggestions. I decided I would be logical and firm with her, just as I’ve almost always been. I would tell her when she was being rude and what my expectations of her behavior were. In other words, when she would sit in the living room waving her cup around and demanding milk, I was most assuredly going to say, “If you want milk, bring me your cup and don’t forget to say please.”

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