It was never a serious contemplation on my part, just a family joke. Mom has control issues, hahaha...humor her and she will be fine! Yeah- well I guess the joke is on me - and really not all that funny.
It all started becoming glaringly apparent last night at my daughter's award ceremony. A fantastic accomplishment on her part for sure, but for some reason I could not get into the happy, proud mommy mood. The child's phone was blinging with text messages even after I told her to turn it off, and when she was speaking to her friends and their parents her voice was two pitches higher than normal and two levels louder, and her diction sounded something very akin to baby talk - something that occurs when she spends too much time with other giggly teenage girls. Not only that, but she had settled the top half of her torso back so that it looked like she was leading her whole body with her pelvis - I know it is because she is a foot taller than her friends, but it drives me nuts, and normally she is proud to be as tall as she is. Needless to say, I came off mean, frumpy and grumpy as I tried to modify all of these things at once. Mean mommy.
Then there was my husband who was driving me NUTS! As we stood in line for afterprogramcookies he lost his mind and said to me,"If you love me you will just grab me one." WHAT?! If I love you? For some reason that really struck me as odd and manipulative. And then he did this move that raises my blood pressure - this move consists of him turning his head to the side and winking at me while baring his teeth in what is supposed to be a coercive smile while he gives me a sarcastic thumbs up. When he does that I want to smack him. Hard. Right in the head. And then rip that thumb off.
It ruined my whole night. I could not enjoy either one of them because their actions were so irritating and I couldn't make them STOP! I did, however, enjoy my boys - I can still control them it seems.
I am off to find out what psychological indicators belong to the mean, controlling mommy. When I look at this logically I understand that I will be perfectly happy when my happiness is not affected by other people's actions.
Or hand motions.
2 comments:
What I dearly love about you and this story is your keen level of self-awareness. Your ability to know you are being controlling and to question whether you are simply protecting your offspring or being a frump. Most truly controlling people I've run into have no idea what they're doing and even less of an idea how to control it. :-)
But what really really got me about this story is your description of your husband's move. I haven't quite got it down yet, but I'm practicing with the full-length mirror and almost have it perfected. He moves - he shoots - he scores!
Finally, I've been accused of being controlling at times. I came to the conclusion that life revolves around love and power ... no ... it revolves around being able to control love and power. Ultimately, control is about species survival.
You were just being a good parent and pointing out the survival risks of being an oh-so-publicly-annoying-giggly-girl to your offspring.
I think you are correct about life revolving around being able to control love and power. Both such unwieldy things...
And I tell that child all the time that I am just trying to make sure that she will be able to make it in this world - we both hope I am doing a good job of that! HA!
;)t
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