Thursday - New Tricks for an older Chick
Feb. 16th, 2006 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreThere was no drive into work today, just a drive into town to take my 16 month old son to see his doctor and a phone call to work on the way to let them know not to expect me. It turns out not to be anything major, just a stomach virus that is going around. Since my son is in daycare, if an illness is going around then he will eventually get around to bringing it home.
They say that become a parent changes you. I figured the change would be small. After all, I didn't become a parent until I was 35 years old. How much change could there be at that point? Surely my personality was well formed and I must be rather stuck in my ways. But that's not the case at all.
Some of the things are minor, such as the fact that if some threw up on me, say, 5 years ago, I would have thrown up myself right back on them and gotten more than a little irate. Yet this morning I survived that very experience, and instead of getting angry or sick or dizzy and faint, I just said, "Rats." It's a small change, but it seems kind of meaningful. I am patient with this little person, and I am not a patient person (if you need proof, check my driving record; I have taken defensive driving to have tickets dismissed more times than I can count). I am tolerant of all kinds of indignities that I would not have tolerated before, from being spit up on to discovering that my favorite blouse has some unidentifiable stain on it in the shape of a small hand print. I don't curse so much anymore, mostly because of a fear that my son's first words in front of the staff of the Lutheran day care center he attends would be something that would get him thrown out.
I'm not sure where the cursing started. Having Jeff around didn't help much. But even he is amazed when I get going good.
"Listen to me," I said to him one day, "I curse like a sailor."
"No, honey," he said, "you curse like a pirate."
"A pirate? Is that worse than a regular sailor?"
"Much," he said, "Much."
But I'm a very nice person. I swear, I mean I promise, that I am, in spite of the language. My parents didn't raise me to talk like a pirate or even a lowly sailor. My mother didn't approve of rough language at all, and it wasn't used much in our house.
I suspect an incident from my childhood set me on the path of the pottymouth. I was diagnosed with Type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes at the age of 8, back in an age where the treatment for it was rather primitive. Over the next few years, I found myself in and out of the hospital on several occasions. While in the hospital, I kept running across children who lived in the hospital and almost never went home: children with tumors, children with cancers and children with diseases that the doctors couldn't find the names of or treatments for. My mother never met a stranger, and she would meet all of the mothers of these children and talk about their cases in front of me. I began to grow afraid that I might become one of those children, and I didn't want to be.
One day, when I was 10 years old and alone in my hospital room while my mother was away for a bit, I started to cry. One of the nurses came in and found me with my face buried in my pillow, bawling my eyes out.
"Why are you crying?" she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know how to tell her that I was just afraid of having to stay there all of the time with people like her. It seemed kind of like an insulting thing to say.
She looked around to make sure no one was outside of the room and shut the door. She was a young nurse, small and thin with long brown hair tied at the nape of her neck in a ponytail.
"Do you ever swear?" she asked in a whisper, "You know, use bad words?"
"Sometimes I say 'damn,'" I whispered back. That was one of the only bad words that my parents habitually used when they were angry.
"Okay," said the nurse, still in a whisper. She took one of the pillows from my bed and held it out in front of me. "I want you to hit this pillow as hard as you can and say, 'I hate this damn hospital! I hate this damn hospital!' Got it?"
I nodded and did as she instructed. I punched the pillow twice, and I recited her mantra each time I did it, then looked at her for approval.
"Good," she said, "Now I want you to do that whenever you get afraid while you're here, okay?"
"Okay," I agreed. And a very bad habit was born.
Eventually, I graduated well past the boundaries of 'damn.'
But since the birth of my son, my language has cleaned up quite a bit. Even Jeff has noticed it. He tells me I'm not near as bad as I used to be, that he hardly hears me curse at all these days. I was never proud of the habit, to tell the truth. It doesn't say much good about a person when she opens her mouth and a string of obscenities pours out.
I still have my moments when I succumb to my old ways. One of the reasons that Jeff thinks I am doing so well is because he doesn't usually ride in traffic with me. When traffic backs up, I am my old pre-motherhood self again. I just have to remember to check the back seat and make sure the baby seat is empty, because I don't think the Lutherans would be amused at the words my son could learn from me during rush hour. I hate the idea of me having to say that I will talk to his father about the language that he uses in front of the child, and promising to see that it doesn't happen again.
I have no choice, I will have to blame Jeff. It would just be too embarrassing to admit that my son's mother, not his father, is one with the problem.
They say that become a parent changes you. I figured the change would be small. After all, I didn't become a parent until I was 35 years old. How much change could there be at that point? Surely my personality was well formed and I must be rather stuck in my ways. But that's not the case at all.
Some of the things are minor, such as the fact that if some threw up on me, say, 5 years ago, I would have thrown up myself right back on them and gotten more than a little irate. Yet this morning I survived that very experience, and instead of getting angry or sick or dizzy and faint, I just said, "Rats." It's a small change, but it seems kind of meaningful. I am patient with this little person, and I am not a patient person (if you need proof, check my driving record; I have taken defensive driving to have tickets dismissed more times than I can count). I am tolerant of all kinds of indignities that I would not have tolerated before, from being spit up on to discovering that my favorite blouse has some unidentifiable stain on it in the shape of a small hand print. I don't curse so much anymore, mostly because of a fear that my son's first words in front of the staff of the Lutheran day care center he attends would be something that would get him thrown out.
I'm not sure where the cursing started. Having Jeff around didn't help much. But even he is amazed when I get going good.
"Listen to me," I said to him one day, "I curse like a sailor."
"No, honey," he said, "you curse like a pirate."
"A pirate? Is that worse than a regular sailor?"
"Much," he said, "Much."
But I'm a very nice person. I swear, I mean I promise, that I am, in spite of the language. My parents didn't raise me to talk like a pirate or even a lowly sailor. My mother didn't approve of rough language at all, and it wasn't used much in our house.
I suspect an incident from my childhood set me on the path of the pottymouth. I was diagnosed with Type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes at the age of 8, back in an age where the treatment for it was rather primitive. Over the next few years, I found myself in and out of the hospital on several occasions. While in the hospital, I kept running across children who lived in the hospital and almost never went home: children with tumors, children with cancers and children with diseases that the doctors couldn't find the names of or treatments for. My mother never met a stranger, and she would meet all of the mothers of these children and talk about their cases in front of me. I began to grow afraid that I might become one of those children, and I didn't want to be.
One day, when I was 10 years old and alone in my hospital room while my mother was away for a bit, I started to cry. One of the nurses came in and found me with my face buried in my pillow, bawling my eyes out.
"Why are you crying?" she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know how to tell her that I was just afraid of having to stay there all of the time with people like her. It seemed kind of like an insulting thing to say.
She looked around to make sure no one was outside of the room and shut the door. She was a young nurse, small and thin with long brown hair tied at the nape of her neck in a ponytail.
"Do you ever swear?" she asked in a whisper, "You know, use bad words?"
"Sometimes I say 'damn,'" I whispered back. That was one of the only bad words that my parents habitually used when they were angry.
"Okay," said the nurse, still in a whisper. She took one of the pillows from my bed and held it out in front of me. "I want you to hit this pillow as hard as you can and say, 'I hate this damn hospital! I hate this damn hospital!' Got it?"
I nodded and did as she instructed. I punched the pillow twice, and I recited her mantra each time I did it, then looked at her for approval.
"Good," she said, "Now I want you to do that whenever you get afraid while you're here, okay?"
"Okay," I agreed. And a very bad habit was born.
Eventually, I graduated well past the boundaries of 'damn.'
But since the birth of my son, my language has cleaned up quite a bit. Even Jeff has noticed it. He tells me I'm not near as bad as I used to be, that he hardly hears me curse at all these days. I was never proud of the habit, to tell the truth. It doesn't say much good about a person when she opens her mouth and a string of obscenities pours out.
I still have my moments when I succumb to my old ways. One of the reasons that Jeff thinks I am doing so well is because he doesn't usually ride in traffic with me. When traffic backs up, I am my old pre-motherhood self again. I just have to remember to check the back seat and make sure the baby seat is empty, because I don't think the Lutherans would be amused at the words my son could learn from me during rush hour. I hate the idea of me having to say that I will talk to his father about the language that he uses in front of the child, and promising to see that it doesn't happen again.
I have no choice, I will have to blame Jeff. It would just be too embarrassing to admit that my son's mother, not his father, is one with the problem.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 06:05 pm (UTC)For the record, the steriotype also would say that the man is the one more willing to pass the buck.
I'm breaking that steriotype, as well.
ROTFLMAO!!!
Date: 2006-02-17 03:25 pm (UTC)I love the story about the nurse! How insightful of her! Of course, she'd never get away with that these days (being alone with a child, encouraging foul, hateful language, etc.). Ah, for the good ol' days!
Re: ROTFLMAO!!!
Date: 2006-02-17 06:17 pm (UTC)I feel guilty.
Damn, I suck.
Re: ROTFLMAO!!!
Date: 2006-02-17 11:32 pm (UTC)Re: ROTFLMAO!!!
Date: 2006-02-18 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 06:25 pm (UTC)