Never Say Never

Have you ever started a sentence with, "My child will NEVER (fill in pre-conceived notion of what would qualify as abhorrent here)?"

What no one tells you is, just by saying such a thing, you have pretty much cursed yourself with exactly that.  The moment such utterances escape your lips, you are doomed. I call it the "Judgey-McJudgerson Curse."  Why? Well, because the reason you said it is that you just saw it happen!  And what did you do? You judged. (Gasp! The shame! I would never do such a thing! Oh, wait...I have.)

Great job. Now YOUR beloved offspring will be the one knocking crap off of the shelves in the store, back-talking you in front of your friends, refusing to say "please" when requesting something, biting another kid at daycare, getting hurt doing something dangerous that didn't SEEM dangerous until they got hurt... Tsk tsk. And it's all your fault.

Or is it? Could it be that kids are just genetically designed to push our buttons? To wreck havoc on our patience until we lash out with some ridiculous ultimatum or consequence?  Or do they teach us that maybe we DON'T know everything about everything and CAN'T predict how we'll react in a given situation...until we get there?  Do they make us pause and think, "Maybe that kid's mom is just as embarrassed as I would be if my kid did that...?"

Nah. They eat cheerios out of the couch cushions and get their heads stuck between banisters.  THEY couldn't possibly teach US anything...

Right? 

♥M