If obedient children are a garden of neatly-lined, labeled rows with pea shoots curling gently up the climbing trellis while the sprinkler mists them from afar, then my children are a tangle of vines and dandelions and the flowers that grow — inexplicably, defiantly — in the cracks of concrete.
If obedient children are theater patrons politely waiting for the right time to applaud in a break in the dance number, then my children are in a mosh pit — airborne, legs askew, hands skyward, heads thrown back.
If obedient children are baseball players in a lineup awaiting their turn at the bat, then my children are an ever-changing game of “kick the can,” rules created and discarded as fast as their feet can carry them, objectives forgotten, scraped knees, no reason to pause.
I am not raising obedient children, is what I am trying to say.
I am raising children who need to know the why behind every rule and who have at least six alternatives you haven’t considered that must be examined before we come to a consensus.
I am raising children who will be heard and seen, felt and known.
It is often exhausting. There are days when I beg, “Can we just do it the way I said? Please? Can you just put some trust in me and the years I’ve kept you happy, fed, and alive? Can you just listen?!”
Then, something happened to remind me about the difference between listening and obedience.
My son, wild and full of joy, got out of the bathtub and left puddles in his wake — invisible puddles, full of danger. I slipped, jamming my toes into the sink, crying out in pain.
He came to check on me, immediately. I explained — after I regained the ability to speak — that his puddles had been a hazard. I was hurt because I hadn’t seen them.
The next day, after his bath, I went into the bathroom. What did I find? Towels pushed up against the sink that my foot had crashed into. A floor wiped (mostly) clear of puddles.
I rarely get obedience, but I often get listening.
My children hear what I say and add it to their own experiences and values. They think, which is not a marker of obedience.
Obedience is compliance with an order based on authority, and my children have no time or energy for that. Listening is making decisions based on hearing what another needs and building it into your daily thoughts and actions.
That, my kids do just fine.
