Scenario #2: Your older daughter is also enjoying her oatmeal. But instead of plopping and pointing, she licks her lips, scoots the bowl your direction, and states, "I'm still hungry."
What should you do?
Well, if you're a good mother, you'll jump to your feet instantly and get the poor, starving children an extra helping of their favorite breakfast food.
But if you're a wise mother, you'll remember that you are training your children for life. And in real life, people have to ask for what they need, not beat around the bush.
How many times have we wives been guilty of hinting to our husbands, or expecting them to read our minds? How many times have we glared at them from our perch in the kitchen, wondering when they'll notice that the trash needs to be emptied? And the truth is that they will typically bend over backwards for us, if we would just be straight-forward with them!
Here's an excerpt from my favorite blog on this subject:
"Women have an uncanny way of assuming the worst and even villainizing their husbands for not being able to read minds.Those of us with little girls need to be especially careful that we are raising them, by example and expectation, to be honest and forthright; not cajoling by subtlty or nagging, but sincerely asking and letting the authority decide...
Can I just be honest and give you a real-life example? (I can’t believe I’m telling this.) Though the reason absolutely eludes me, I have often found some sick pleasure in setting my husband up for failure so that I could claim “hurt feelings”. What is that??!!" (read more...)
"Ye have not, because ye ask not..." James 4:2
Glaring at him from my perch in the kitchen... been there, done that! =O Josh told me straight up one day that I needed to get used to asking him to take out the trash, he said he was pretty sure that it wouldn't kill me (or him) to ask him to do something. Hehee! It's so universal, this expectation we women have of expecting men to read our minds, our body language, our veiled comments and suggestions... even the way we are banging pots and pans TODAY, as opposed to the way we NORMALLY bang them! =D
ReplyDeleteI'm learning. And trying to pass along the message as much as I can. =)
That's so true. It's like we feel unloved because he can't read our mind. He's supposed to know that when I say, "Oh, it's OK, we don't need to do _____", that I don't really mean it! But how can he know, if I don't tell him!?!
ReplyDeleteI'm working on this honesty too, but it's so hard!
For me, this is an area where the "martyr-complex" rears its ugly head. And after "suffering in silence" for a considerable amount of time, I finally burst out in vengeance upon an unsuspecting husband.
I like your contrast of the "good" mother vs. the "wise" mother. :) I never knew how many of our little unconscious (bad) habits were probably picked up in childhood until had the opportunity to mold and raise someone from day 1! And those are the ones that leave us realing when the consequences come later - we feel offended and hurt that somebody thinks we did something wrong when deep down inside we thought we weren't - because that was how we were raised.
ReplyDeleteAnd those habits are SO hard to break later!!!
Christie, thank you for picking up on my intent here:
ReplyDeleteThere are so many "little" habits and behaviors, to which mothers are inclined to turn a blind eye. But when each one is viewed in the light of 10, 15, 20 years down the road, suddenly an "insignificant" behavior becomes monumental.
What wisdom! All I would have seen was the need to teach them to be polite in asking for more oatmeal. You are very good at showing us the bigger picture! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteOH - and after working for 8 years in an office (5 years in this cubicle) you get to know your co-workers very well. And it's exactly THOSE habits, the subtle unconscious ones of how you relate to each other and how you see yourself in relation to others that becomes the biggest bane in working with xxxx and it becomes the hushed cubicle conversations of "You won't believe what xxxx did" conversations!
ReplyDeleteYep, been there!
ReplyDeleteGreat reminder to me though to think about how I'm training my girls.
Yep, been there!
ReplyDeleteGreat reminder to me though to think about how I'm training my girls.