My daughters don’t like when I treat them like children. They want me to see them as partners in our home, with an equal say in all decisions that affect them. As fully grown, legally recognized adults, my children are trying to assert their independence.
By “independence” I mean they still want free housing, free food, clothing, entertainment, a car with full insurance provided, phones, no required house chores, yard chores, or responsibilities, they want their privacy respected while maintaining open access for themselves to all parts of the house at any time, and they have the nerve to expect….
I think I’m getting a little derailed here. What was I talking about?
Oh, right. Independence. The girls want the freedom to come and go as they please, and to treat dad like a painted backdrop in a high school play.
Anyone reading this blog already knows that I have clearly failed as a father. It’s too late to change their behaviors now. They will continue to live their lives right under our noses while at the same time pretending they have no parents. I know this is true because, for the most part, this is exactly how I treated my parents at the same age. I’m not proud of it, but I am acknowledging that lousy kids raise lousy kids.
Since I am desperate for attention because both of my children see me as little more than an extension of the furniture, it should come as no surprise that a couple weeks ago, when EM1 asked me if I would teach her how to bake homemade cookies, I jumped at the chance to interact with my child as something other than a bank ATM.
EM1 really likes a pumpkin spice cookie recipe that I found a few years ago. She wanted to know if I had enough fresh pumpkin from the garden to make some with her and teach her how to do them for herself. I said I did, and of course I would show her how.
On the Friday we agreed upon, I began pulling out pans and ingredients. I asked EM1 how many she wanted to make. She paused a moment, then told me that six dozen should be enough, but we should probably make a few extra in case some of them were bad.
Surprised, I asked her why she wanted to make so many. That was when she told me, “My pastor asked if people could bake some homemade goods and bring them to distribute to the church families since we haven’t been able to do group services. I told him that you could make cookies for everyone.”
Yup. My lovely daughter volunteered me to bake six dozen cookies for her church before she even thought to ask me. And because I was so starved for affection from my own kids, I dove headfirst right into her devious little plan. I wasn’t happy about her suckering me into what felt like a middle-school bake sale, where the teachers rope parents into helping by making the kids agree to it before mom and dad know it’s even coming.
EM1 defended herself by saying, “But I told them you make really good cookies.”
Which wasn’t really the point of my complaint, but I still enjoyed the compliment. Hey, I’m human.
I spent the next five hours measuring, sifting, stirring, mixing, shaping, baking and bagging pumpkin spice cookies. I made sure that EM1 did most of the grunt work. I figured this was her idea, so she didn’t get to sit on the couch eating test batches while I did the cooking. To my surprise, she actually did a pretty good job once we got the assembly line rolling. She was baking like a real grownup.
About halfway through the whole baking process, EM2 wandered into the kitchen, grabbed a cookie without asking, then asked, “Why are you baking with her? How come you never do this with me?”
I told her to grab an apron and a spoon, but she shook her head. “I don’t want to help, I want us to make Halloween cookies and decorate them, just the two of us. Hey! We should do that tomorrow!”
I told her I didn’t really want to spend another entire day of my weekend baking.
She said, “Okay. We’ll do Halloween cookies tomorrow.” Then she grabbed another pumpkin cookie from the cooling rack and disappeared.
Because I am … well, me, I spent all day Saturday making Halloween sugar cookies with EM2. In order to make sure I was being fair, EM2 insisted that we couldn’t just make a dozen or so cookies. Her sister got to make six dozen cookies, so I had to make six dozen more with her.
As I have demonstrated time and again, I have no real backbone to speak of, so once more, I spent my day measuring, sifting, stirring, etc. Only this time it took even longer since we had to make frosting and decorate each cookie after it was baked.
If it sounds like I’m complaining, it’s because I am. But I acknowledge that for two entire days, I was relevant to my kids. Maybe even important. Perhaps that was only because EM1 devised a devious plan to obtain baked goods, and EM2 was too jealous to see EM1 do anything that she couldn’t do as well, but I’ll take it. Sometimes even the worst intentions can result in something positive.
I spent time with my kids.
Now I just need to figure out what to do with all these damn cookies in the house.
.
.
.
Enjoying Deep Dark Thoughts? Follow me on Facebook so you don’t miss a post. Just go to my page and click the “Like” button to receive updates on my blog and other projects.
And you can follow me on Twitter @gallenwilbanks.