Blind-sided By a Social Worker

Have you ever seen a young 2-3 year old child go ballistic in a public place? I'm talking about a complete Chernobyl-quality meltdown? I remember witnessing this once when, in lieu of Sydney's regularly scheduled nap, we were out shopping as a family. I hope you didn't miss that tricky bit of foreshadowing. While we circled the store like birds of prey intoxicated by the scent of cheap children's wear, an already tired Sydney became more and more exhausted and cranky. She was systematically reaching critical mass, and she was telling us, but we were ignoring the situation because we are model parents.

Finally, her escalating protests convinced us it was time to leave. As I stood in the checkout line Sydney's cries of frustration reached the same audible level as the store's PA system, so I squatted down and got really close to her face, you know, in order to rationalize with her. At this point she promptly struck me in the nose. Before I could react it was our turn at the cash register so Dewdette picked her up and carried her out of the store.

Ironically, we were in the middle of reading a book called Scream Free Parenting and we had been trying to follow the advice of the author (Hal Runkel). One thing he hammers home is that we, as parents, need to keep our cool and be calm and consistent. Raising our kids is an emotional endeavor, but if we can't get control of our emotions, what gives us the right to expect our kids to control theirs?

I walked out of the store with our loot and found Sydney absolutely hysterical and Mommy being cool, calm, collected and firm. She had deduced that trying to drag a hysterical 2 year old through a busy parking lot alone was not a safe option, so she had restrained Sydney by putting her in a make-shift timeout corner formed by the exterior of the store. I stood back and let her handle the situation. At this point we could have both managed to man-handle Sydney safely into the car, but Mommy was trying to wait her out and calm her down. In fact she kept repeating just that, "Sydney, please calm down. Calm down honey. We're going to stay here, and you are going to stay in the corner, until you calm down." Meanwhile Sydney was doing everything in her power to get out of that corner. She was screaming, flailing her arms, pushing herself away from the corner, and kicking her feet. Mommy was consistently keeping her restrained to the corner and repeating her words. Sticking to our guns and waiting for her to run out of gas seemed like the best option to me, too, so I stayed out of the way, but close enough to help if needed.

And that's when we were blind-sided by the social worker.

"Excuse me," she said. "I'm a social worker and I'm also a parent, so I have experience with this, and I just want you to know that technically what your wife is doing right now is considered child abuse."

It is amazing how this woman had found the exact right combination of words to turn my brain and my tongue to complete pudding. By the grace of God alone Dewdette did not hear her.

She continued, "Now I'm not saying that as a threat, I'm not going to report this, but I just want you to know so that you and your wife can make better decisions in the future."

Somewhere in the pudding I managed to find the words, "So now we're not even supposed to restrain our children in public?"

"Oh I'm not saying that," she protested, "I'm just saying that this sort of thing should be handled privately in the home. Also, you and your wife should consider taking some parenting classes. You can find more information about them on the government website."

And then she left.

I have two regrets concerning this whole ordeal. The first is my part in creating the situation. The bible talks about making sure we don't exasperate our children, and I think that is terrific advice. After the tears and crying and feeling like we were run over by an emotional garbage truck, we were able to stop and legitimately reflect on the situation. We realized that we had made an unwise decision to take Sydney shopping at the exact same time that her body is programmed to be sleeping. We pushed her past her limits and that is our fault.

My second regret is that I was so blitzed by this woman that I followed her advice immediately. I took over with Sydney, picked her up kicking and screaming, carried her across the parking lot, forced her into her car seat and strapped her in. She went totally ballistic trying to get out of the car seat all the way home. It was unsafe, unwise, and traumatic on the whole family. In hind sight I can think of several safer alternatives.

I'm not here to slander social workers. They perform many needed services to our community. I'm also not here to have you tell me we were right and she was wrong. This isn't a compliment fishing expedition.

What I am here to do is help you avoid making the same mistakes I have made. In this case I know I made a few and I do not care to reproduce them. Dewdette and I made a family rule that day and as silly and shallow as it sounds on the surface, here it is.

Being good parents is more important than shopping.

Only in America, right? We've applied the underlying principle to our lives also. Which means we have skipped out on doing many things that would have been fun so that we can keep our girls happy. Being a parent means making sacrifices and we don't regret that.

So what about you? Have you traded in an opportunity to be a good parent for something much less important? I'd love to hear about it.

The Dishwasher and the Jerkhole

My friend Alvin, the conservative vegetarian, says the Internet doesn't need another blog that deprecates men. I'm going to do my best not to, however when I score an Olympic gold medal in the 100 Metre Jerkhole, I'm going to say so. Otherwise I'll just end up doing it again. The scene begins with me loading our yuppy dishes into our yuppy dishwasher in our yuppy suburb of Atlanta. You can see already that I'm a real person, with real problems. I stood there putting in plate after plate, getting more and more hacked off by the minute. My wife had already loaded most of the dishes before me and I was just topping them off and finishing the job.

The problem is that Dewdette and I were raised to load a dishwasher in two distinctly different ways. Obviously I think my way is "right." So as I was putting those last few dishes into the dishwasher, the correct way (cough), I couldn't stand it anymore. My inner jerkhole came out to play.

"Why do you insist on loading the dishwasher this way?" I demanded.

She didn't respond.

"Don't you know when you do A, B, and C it causes X, Y, and Z?" I continued impatiently.

Still silence.

"And have you even considered points 1 and 2? I mean... Come. On." I concluded with an exasperated grunt.

I was in a crappy mood. I don't remember why but I had probably stayed up too late the night before toying around on the Internet or playing video games. I'm extra cranky when I'm tired.

Once I finished spewing my word-vomit, she looked over at me and said something that cut me to the core and completely disarmed me. In a quiet voice she said,

"The way you are talking to me right now makes me feel like this is the most important issue to you in our marriage."

Just thinking about it now, as I type this, I can almost feel the wave of guilt wash over me again.

Immediately, I knew she was right.

Immediately, I knew I had to apologize.

I mean, I love our marriage! And I am well aware that we have significant issues that we are working out and making progress towards... but for crying out loud the dishwasher thing isn't even on the radar! What was I thinking?

Sydney and Savannah,

I don't know who you will marry one day. I don't know if you'll marry a selfish jerk like me, or worse. Maybe years of being exposed to my outbursts and temper tantrums will turn you into insensitive jerkettes.

I do know this. If you are in the wrong you should apologize as soon as humanly possible. And if your spouse is in the wrong please, please, please confront them about it in a quiet manner like your mom did with me here. I'm a work in progress. Chances are, your husbands will be too. How you handle yourself with them will either bless them or curse them.

This is just one example, out of countless others, where your mother's grace towards me has helped me get to a place I should have been all along. I'm so thankful for her.

Love, Daddy

Eventually, later that day, I did apologize to my wife. Let's assume that it's as easy and fun for me to apologize as it is for you. It's not pleasant, but it is necessary.

So what about you, reader? Has your inner jerkhole come out to play with your unsuspecting spouse lately? Go apologize. Or have you been the victim of a drive-by word-vomiting? Did you handle it with character or did you vomit back?

It only takes one to break a cycle.

Be the one.

Child-like Wonder

Here are three short videos I created recently to document Savannah at 1 year old. She can't walk just yet but she gets around. If only life was this fascinating to us as adults I think we'd have a lot more joy in the world.