As I was asking, then begging, then screaming at my children to do something for me today, the thought came to mind, who wrote that song? "When my mother calls me, quickly I'll obey." Obviously, the person that wrote those words never had any children and skipped straight from infancy to adulthood themselves. I have never witnessed any child quickly obey and if your children do so, please post your methods in the comments section as I could really use some parenting advice. I have found in my experience as both a child and a mother that children will quickly obey for the following 3 reasons:
1. They are sucking up and are hoping to get something from their compliance. In my house that usually entails having a friend over to play and our exchange will sound something like, "Can you do this for me?" "Oh yes mommy, I would love to do that for you. I love helping you so much, in fact I think it is my favorite thing to do." And then almost like the subliminal messages you hear when you play the Beatles records backwards, "Can I have a friend over?" It is so quick, so subversive, that my "Uh-huh" response is usually done without forethought as to what the consequences will be for answering that way. Since I have all boys there is usually mud, fighting, and some sort of bodily fluid involved in those consequences.
2. You are enforcing the secret pinch. My children are not perfect, so I rarely take them out in public because I am smarter than my mother. My mother would cart all 5 of us off to the store with her. Since she was clearly outnumbered to keep us from adding expensive sugar-filled items to the cart or from screaming things out like, "Stop beating me!" she would employ the secret pinch. You all know the secret pinch. It is a pinch so deadly that it will can make any unruly, tantrum-throwing child obey. All a mother has to do is grab the skin on your upper arm and pinch all the while steering the child in the direction she wants him or her to go and voila! instant obedience. The thing about the secret pinch is that no one else can see that you are being tortured and if you scream for help your mother can let go so quickly that everyone will just think you are a bratty child looking for attention. It is the perfect secret weapon used by all mothers, even the ones that pretend they would never do it.
3. You are screaming, crying, and threatening to tell their dad. You know you've said it, "Just WAIT 'til your dad gets home." I don't know what my husband would do if I did tattle. I would like to think it would be something grand and it would end with my children making their beds and vacuuming the stairs all while singing, "I Love Mother." But, I can't imagine that 5 hours later he would be so upset that his wrath would be worth the threat. We as moms know that it is really code for, "I have tried everything to get you to do what I am asking and since I am out of options, I AM GOING TO TELL YOUR DAD." We really must give our kids more credit, they know we are going to forget, that some much larger crisis (like what to make for dinner) will consume us long before dad really gets home.
I am calling on all Primary music choiristors to ban this song. Because when our children are standing up on the stand on Mother's Day singing wholeheartedly how they will quickly obey, we know they are lying. They cannot possibly keep this promise. Or maybe they could sing,"When my mother calls me, first I will ignore,then I will just scream and cry, curse at her, then scream more."
