So I’m pretty sure I know how it happened. I’m just trying to figure out when it happened. The shift was slow and gradual, sneaking up on me so that it caught me unaware. And I think I’ve been in denial for a while, refusing to acknowledge what I’ve become…the Mom Behind the Curtain.
See, I used to know everything. I was the Great and Powerful Mom. Every day all day they’d ask me question upon question: “Wat dat, Mommy? Where we going, Mommy? Why’s the sky blue, Mommy? What do you think would happen if I rode my bike in the pool, Mommy?” It didn’t matter what the question was, I knew it all. What a good thing!
But I’m pretty sure, somewhere in the midst of this nonstop quest for information that often interfered with my basic functioning as a sane individual, I began to answer, “I don’t know.” And, as the questions got harder and my need for peace and quiet increased, I also began to answer: “Hmmm, I’m not sure. Go ask your father. Go look it up. What do you think, honey?” Along with the contagiously convenient: “I don’t know.”
The sad thing is…my strategy worked, at least if my two teenagers are any indication. Very clearly, I know NOTHING at this point in my life. And it’s my own doing. I told them I didn’t know. Why, oh why, did they have to listen to me about that? It’s just not fair.
But admitting you have a problem means you’re halfway to fixing your problem, right? And actually, I think I’m more than halfway to reclaiming my status as the Great and Powerful Mom thanks to my new offensive tactic. It’s based on my oldest son’s theory of life which is: Why deal with facts when you can live in your own reality!
I’m adopting that little pearl of wisdom and from now on, I’m making stuff up! Never again will I say, “I don’t know.” I’m going to have an answer for everything, and really, who’s going to be the wiser? And just like Dorothy and her three friends, my children will once again come begging me for an audience in which I can share my vast knowledge of the universe with them. And all will be right with the world…
So I tested the waters yesterday with my youngest. He was giving me the play by play on the massive bug habitat that the neighbor kids had created with locusts and worms and mud and grass and then…whammo! Out of nowhere I got hit with, “What color are termites, Mom?”
I flipped through my mental file folders with rising panic. The termite folder was empty except for the random tidbit that they ate most of the historic wooden buildings in New Orleans. That wasn't going to cut it. I almost said, "I don't know, honey" when I remembered that we're not in Kansas anymore...and I made something up.
“Brown,” I said with authority. Max seemed to buy it, so I continued. “Yup, they’re brown and little, kind of like a mini-beetle, and they like to live in dirt or mud. And they also like to eat wood, brown wood, ‘cause it matches their wing color…” Max was nodding along with me. I felt slightly guilty, but not enough to abandon my brilliant new parenting plan. Because I think I’m well on my way to becoming the Great and Powerful Mom once again. And that, I’m quite sure, is a very good thing!
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