Raising Grown-ups

At bathtime last night, the kids were goofing around as I dried them off and got their teeth brushed and the ear wax rubbed out of their ears. First four-year-old Helen and then, reluctantly, eight-year-old Silas asked for an extra clean q-tip to suck on, something they've always done for reasons mysterious to me. Helen can still be absolutely unselfconscious about it, but Si chews on the end of the q-tip a little like he's deliberately taking on a pleasure he's outgrown. He's been doing this a lot lately--I can see a new, considering adult self standing beside his usual enthusiastic childlike self. It's so grown-up that it startles me sometimes: who IS this guy? And WHAT is going through his head?

What was going through his head last night apparently involved bad adult habits. He started pretending to inhale from the q-tip and then blowing out, waving the imaginary ashes off the tip like a miniature Hollywood mogul. All that's missing is a silk dressing gown and a dapper little mustache. "I'm smok-ing," he singsongs, giggling. In a flash, Helen's doing it, too. YIKES.

"Where'd you see someone smoking?" I say. Maybe a TRIFLE nervously. I'm suddenly remembering that some kids start smoking at seven, eight years old. What if--

"Oh, in a car," he assures me. "On Belleview."

It's seems both plausible and a little too pat, and I'm thrust forward five years, into middle school and high school and That Time I Am Dreading. Running through my head are a thousand and one anti-drug campaigns: "Talk to your kids about drugs," they intone. "Talk to your kids about smoking." Merde, I say, only in English. Once again, it looks like I've dropped the parenting ball.

"So," I say, "you know smoking is totally gross and bad for you, right?"

They both giggle and nod. I seem to have mislaid this particular parental script and I'm not sure what comes next--do I tell them about the statistics? Do I say it might seem like a tempting thing to try--like IN COLLEGE BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER EVEN THINK ABOUT SMOKING WHILE YOU ARE LIVING IN MY HOUSE--but anyone I've ever known who smokes wishes desperately that they could stop? In general, I try to live by the parental philosophy that I'm not raising kids, I'm raising grownups. This means that while I reserve the right to hand down dictates, most of the time I try to focus on developing skills. I know what the dictate is, here, but what is the skill?

DAMMIT. It's a pop quiz and I am FAILING.

"I'm smo-o-o-king," Si repeats, waving his q-tip some more. I'm quiet for a bit, as I try to get this right. I comb his wet hair, drawing the teeth over the skull that just a few years ago was a square, tippy toddler's head and which is growing daily into its adult shape, full of worries and temptations that I can barely keep up with.

I blurt out: "Do you know anyone who smokes?"

He shakes his head quickly (whew), and tosses the chewed-up q-tip into the trash. He's still on the edge of giggles, but the mood in the room has changed. He's paying attention, in his own goofing-off, bouncy, eight-year-old way. I think about asking if he knows what smoking does to your lungs--only the image of the blackened autopsy lung seems too violent for the well-lit bathroom. Then I start to ask about addiction-- that demon that forces people to do the same, horrible, bad-for-you thing every day. That gets stuck in my throat, too. There's something untruthful about these arguments, as factual as they might be. They have the tone of a threat. Try a cigarette, kid, and I'll blacken your lungs. No. I need to give him the skills to take that information--which he'll get, soon enough, if he hasn't already--and use it to make the right choice when the time comes. I'm thinking I need to start in a position of trust, and give him the support he will need to carry out that trust.

I take a deep breath. Don't screw this up, I tell myself.

"Smoking is bad for you," I say, "but people still do it. What's important, kiddo--what's important is that you tell me or Dad, if kids you know are doing stuff like that."

I squat down and look him in the eye. Even I'm a little embarrassed by my own seriousness, but he seems to be listening. "Can we have that deal?"

He nods. Deal. After he and his sister have run off to get their PJs on, I take a deep breath, still a little shaky. This is Big Stuff, and I'm not at all sure that I'm not screwing it up. What I want, more than anything, is to weave a protective cocoon around each of them, and not take it off until they're thirty. But that's not the world we live in. So even though it seems a little like giving him a pair of safety scissors and a fork and sending him off into the deep dark woods, trust and support is the best thing I can give. I only hope it is enough.

An original Rocky Mountain Moms Blog post.

Melospiza also writes about the challenges of raising kids on her personal blog.