Last year, by accident, through a conversation with the Big Girl, I discovered a useful tool in parenting: imagine an audience.
“What did you do at school today?” I asked the Big Girl.
“Well, we all talked about how our parents wake us up in the morning.”
“What did you say?” I prodded, with curiosity and trepidation.
“With a good-morning song.”
Why she said this, I don’t know, because I’d only done that a few times. After hearing her comment, though, I began singing a good-morning song every day, and “sing in the morning” became my lead happiness-project resolution for the month.
What a nice habit, to wake up your child with a good-morning song!
By the same token, I was dismayed to see that in one of the Big Girl’s essays, she talked about watching TV while she eats breakfast. The fact that I’m embarrassed by this practice means that I should put a stop to it. (Which, by the way, I have not done.) A friend of mine disconnected their cable TV after she found herself lying to her pediatrician about how much TV her children watched.
Just as adults counsel themselves not to do anything that they wouldn’t want reported on the front page of the New York Times, I shouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t want to be featured in an essay displayed on the wall for Parent Night.
