A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

That old proverb isn't just about sewing, oh, no. Proverbs 17 contains a choice morsel with a similar application:

The beginning of strife is like releasing water; therefore stop contention before a quarrel starts.

Another folk proverb along these lines is about 'nipping it in the bud.' That is, the best time to deal with an issue is before it becomes an issue.

I remember with crystal clarity the day I realized exactly how my failure in this area marks perhaps the single largest area where I fall down consistently, and most disappointingly, in my role as Mama. It was some 12 years ago. A friend and I were taking a walk down a gravel country road with our children, most of them quite small. The children were picking flowers, playing, skipping down the road, or walking close by us as the two mothers talked. I had this little script in my head for how the walk was going to go- it was right out of Little House on the Prairie or something. All sweetness and light, with my lovely ladies behaving like lovely ladies, and fine conversation, and perhaps even a song or two as the script morphed from Little House into Sound of Music.

Without realizing it consciously, however, something was bothering me. It began as a small, niggling irritation, but it was bothering me more and more. Like a fly, the pesky irritation returned, more annoying each time it surfaced, and treating it like a fly, I kept brushing it away. Suddenly the reason behind the irritation broke through the surface, and I exploded, "Will you stop scuffling your feet?! You're kicking gravel onto my legs and it stings! You're ruining your new shoes, getting us both dirtier than we need to be, and that noise is driving me crazy. So just stop it!"

And the little lady at whom my ire was directed stopped, stared at me open mouthed, gulped, and nodded. And I suddenly realized that I was the only one who had had any warning of what was coming, but I acted like everybody should have just known what was wrong before I did, and stopped whatever annoying thing they were doing. The child in question was only four. She hadn't read my script for the afternoon. She didn't know kicking the gravel and scuffling her feet was going to scuff up the toes of her new shoes. She didn't know how much I worried about where the money was going to come for the next pair of new shoes. She didn't realize she was kicking gravel onto my legs, and if she had known, she probably wouldn't have realized how unpleasant that was. She might have known any of these things if I had stopped at the letting out of waters and explained them to her calmly, before I allowed my irritation to breach the dam. But I didn't.

I would like to say that this blinding realization on this road to Damascus led to instant reform on my part, but it didn't. I am still struggling with this tendency to ignore, brush away, overlook, inadequately address, and then suddenly realize, "I am in a state of extreme irritation and it is all your fault" and act accordingly. It's really all my fault for not taking care of it at the place of the letting out of waters.

Last night, for instance... The majority of our Christmas things are still packed and quite inaccessible this year, including some favorite Christmas movies. Yesterday at a thrift shop I found a copy of one of them so I brought it home. We planned to watch it after piano practice and after the kitchen was cleaned up. I had a script in my head of happy, sweetly brushed and pajama'd Progeny cheerfully watching the movie, thanking their Mama for her kindness in getting it for them, appreciating the way Mama just makes Christmas, and singing along with the songs (in harmony, preferably). Meanwhile, before the movie I was working on a writing project with a computer that wasn't cooperative. The First Year Girl was not following my script. She departed from her lines altogether and began grumbling. She didn't want to watch that movie, she wanted to watch a different one. She was sure she hated that movie, and it was boring, and why did we have to do that one, and she knew she didn't like it; rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat.

And that was my fault. Had I been paying enough attention to her instead of my writing project, I should have addressed this at the first sign of complaint. But I didn't. I did respond. I told her that she didn't remember the movie and I thought she would like it. She argued, and it still didn't register with me, at least not consciously, and then she went back to muttering and grumbling. My frustration level was growing out of all proportion to what the computer was doing, but I was brushing it away as often as she was repeating her grumblings, which is far too often.

And suddenly, it all registered and I brought forth a reaction instead of a response and snapped sharply and loudly, "I am sick to death of that complaining and you will put your lips together and not release another grumble from those lips or you will, and I mean it, brush your teeth and go to bed and not watch anything, even if it's in the middle of the movie, and we will all sit out here watching Christmas movies and eating sweets and laughing and singing and you will be alone in the dark and miserable and we will be having fun because it is Christmas, and I bought this movie as a treat so we could all have FUN so you will watch this movie and have FUN, do you understand?!"

Yes, really, I did say something like that. I probably wasn't as articulate, but I am sure I concluded the whole thing with an order to have fun. That's always so effective, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't result in anybody actually having fun, but it certainly is effective at creating a particular sort of mood. Ahem.

So, I realized by the look on her face and the stupidity of the words coming out of my mouth that I'd blown it again, and I walked it back. I told her I was sorry about my grouchiness, although she really did need to stop grumbling or she would not be able to watch the movie, but she wasn't going to be in trouble if she didn't have fun while doing it. Everybody laughed, albeit somewhat shakily, and she did put her lips together and visibly bite back another complaint, which is cool.

My humiliations and 'whupping from the Lord' not being judged complete, it turned out the movie was not even the movie we thought it was- same title, but a modernized version (it doesn't matter what it was, but we thought it was a classic cartoon of some fifty years back, and it was a revision from the 90's). It was okay, although there was no singing. Parts of it were even quite funny, but it's not one I would have picked, either, and I had to bite back the complaints about it that I wanted to make. And, of course, I had to apologize again. She kindly told me that it was okay, she liked parts of it, and I accepted that bucket of coals over my head as only what I deserved.

It seems my Progeny are not the only ones who neglect to read the script in their mother's head- Blest with Sons has been dealing with something similar. She writes:

Has anyone ever noticed that sometimes doing the right thing leads to a whole lot more angst than doing the wrong thing? I mean, when I’m my usual selfish self and spend the day doing what I want to do (like playing the piano, and blogging, and cooking, and blogging, and crafting and blogging about crafting) and my children are occupied with wholesome videos and not so wholesome snacks…. Well, then there seems to be a decent amount of peace on earth in my household. But then I go to bed not peaceful at all, as I know I have shirked my God-given duties and neglected my kids, even if they seem pretty happy.

So I make my little Advent calendar. And I do the Christmas crafts… And I find out that when you have four boys 7 and under, and at least one of them has Asperger Syndrome, then doing the warm fuzzy Christmas craft thing is actually the shortest road between the two points of calm mommy and mommy whose head is spinning around while her eyes out flash the tree!

There's more at the link, and it's worth reading. I'm prayfully trying to remember that I don't get to write the scripts. That's God's job, and He has a script for me, too, and I need to be following it. And if I address those behavioral issues when they first come up- often indicated by a mere facial expression or body language- we will all be happier, and more importantly, more in keeping with that script God has laid out.