Yesterday I was in the car with my cousins for nine and a half hours. It got tiring pretty quickly. Half way through the trip, Aunt Jennifer said something to Bryce and instantly I remembered the many times my mom had said the same thing. Here's the story:
Bryce was acting up. Every now and then he would lean over to my chair and start moving his hand up my arm, through my sleeve, and tickling me. Whereupon I would bring both hands in and start tickling him full throttle. Then high-pitch shriek. After about thirty minutes of this Uncle Paul and Aunt Jennifer started having severe headaches.
"Be quiet Bryce," Aunt Jennifer said.
"I can't Mom," Bryce said. What he meant was that he couldn't be quiet if I tickled him.
"Then, don't lean over into Duncan's chair," Uncle Paul said. He actually said this multiple times during the car trip.
"I can't Dad," Bryce said.
Oh, here it comes.
"Why don't you ask God to help you?" Aunt Jennifer asked.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. I can't imagine why. It doesn't sound like something that every mother says. I don't think even every evangelical Christian would say this. This is the kind of thing that you grow up hearing and thinking "Ug, I will never say that to my children when I grow up." It's weird.
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Of course Bryce could, he just didn't want to.
ReplyDeleteI was babysitting some kids once who were being really wild before their Mom had even walked out the door. She told them to stop being wild, and they said, "But we can't!" And their Mom said that same thing, "Ask God to help you."
ReplyDeleteIt seems that usually when people say that to their kids, they're trying to avoid giving a direct command. They make some kind of "suggestion" and then when their kid doesn't listen, they say that. It'd be much simpler to just tell their kid to do something and to mean it instead of making disinterested inconsequential suggestions. It's not so much the phrase itself that bothers me, but the way some parents use it, as a way of "spiritualizing" their child's disobedience--"My child is being blatantly disobedient, but it's OK; I told him to pray."
I remember getting that a lot. "Mom, I'm bored/I broke something/I burped/I've been abducted by aliens!" "Well, why don't you pray about it?"
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, I should have said that to David when he was demanding his forty-second potty break over in our car...