The Blogfathers

Last week, I wrote a post on my blog about my son being in his first Christams pageant. His church does this every year and it’s reserved for kids 4 and up. So this year, the boy made his debut…as a sheep.

All four year olds got the choice of being an angel or a sheep. My son chose to be livestock.

The skit was pretty well organized. They had three kings, a bunch of shepherds, Mary & Joseph and even a little Jesus…named Elizabeth. Rehearsal began at 4:00 and we were to all show up in the church at 5:30. As we entered, it was chaos with two crying sheep, and angel who wouldn’t wear her halo and three kings who were trying wrestle each other without spilling the Myrrh. The real Jesus probably found it quieter in the orginal stable.

It turns out, one of the crying sheep was our son. He didn’t want to be on stage anymore. After a few minutes of trying to persude him, we said he didn’t have to sing and started taking him out of the sheep costume. And then the protests began.

While he had no interest in performing “Away in a Manger”, he was perfectly content being a sheep. Lightbulbs started going off how we might be able to have him return on-stage.

“You can keep the sheep costume on only if you sing.”
“All the other kids are having fun singing. Don’t you want to have fun too?”
“Do you want to see yourself on TV later? You can if daddy can video tape you, otherwise no watching yourself.”
“Santa doesn’t like it if farm animals don’t sing.”

For five minutes we bribed this kid with every we could…favors, treats, crackers. (For the record, I ate the goldfish crackers when he didn’t want them.) As the last goldfish went down, I suddenly realized that this pageant wasn’t for him anymore… it had become about me.

OmiGod, I had volidated the cardinal rule of parenting…let your kid find his/her true joy with what he wants to do and then appreciate what they love. I, of all people, was wanting my child to do what I wished for him and was ignoring his own wants.

(Savor the irony, mother.)

With that, I put the video camera down and pulled him on my lap. “If you don’t want to sing, you don’t have to. And you can wear the costume if you want as well. It’s Christmas Eve adn it’s about you. If your happy, then I’m happy.” We settled back to watch the pageant.

After a minute or so, he leaned back and looked at me with a smile. I felt a special father/son moment coming on.

“Can I have the crackers now?”

Capos, Parenting Challenges