Me: “When you’re done with that plate, please get up and put it in the kitchen sink.”
7 year-old Mia: “No Thank You”
To this day, nearly five years since she first uttered that phrase, when Mia is confronted with a situation that doesn’t quite suit her, she simply turns to us, looks up (or these days, down) and kindly says, “No, Thank You.”
Even if it wasn’t a suggestion. Or a request. And somehow, every time she declines our direction, she does it in a way that isn’t rude or disrespectful. She genuinely doesn’t want to do it and genuinely doesn’t want to be rude in telling us so.
That leads me to my current situation. I’m 41. I don’t decline anything. I mean, very, very rarely will I say “no” to anything anyone asks of me, regardless of how they ask it, unless my kids need me or I am asleep or it requires me to drive and I’ve had some wine. But lately, as the pressures of running two foundations, a household and a family have mounted and life has thrown me some curve balls both medically and emotionally, I’ve decided maybe, just maybe, Mia has been onto something all along.
When people are mean, I take it. When people are demanding, I take it. When people talk shit behind my back and I literally catch them by seeing it on another person’s phone, I take it. And it’s not because I’m weak or a pushover. It’s truly because I think “I should be the bigger person here. I can handle this. I can handle them. And I should. Because I’ve done mean things and bad things and if this is my punishment, I should just deal with it.”
Do you do that? Do you ever feel like, even if it a particular moment you have done nothing wrong, you have surely done enough wrong in your past to deserve being talked to/treated like/etc whatever nonsense is being thrown at you? Shame? Guilt? Pressure? Passive-aggressiveness?
Because I do. I think constantly about how much wrong I have done before I think at all about how much RIGHT and GOOD I have done. I could end all the wars, feed the world and cure cancer and I’d still say, “well, that one time in high school I was really mean to that girl and maybe it ruined her whole year or life and so I guess I should just hate myself forever and ever until I die.”
Anyone else?
Well – last week – I kind of stopped this. Not totally, but a little bit. I decided to be more like my 11 year-old daughter than my 41 year-old self. I decided to say, “No Thank You.”
Because someone else’s crappy demeanor, unwarranted judgement and unrealistic expectations should not be my cross to bear. Man, I have enough of my own. And I’m sure you do too. These situations actually don’t require me to comply and while I wish Mia would sometimes consider a “sure, no problem” rather than a “No Thank You” when I ask her to go take a shower, I respect her voicing her displeasure and disinterest in what I’m bringing to the table. She speaks up.
I’m doing something right with these kids.
So, I’m going to keep trying this. Whenever I feel like I’m being disrespected, disregarded or just plain shit-on, I’m going to go with this: “No Thank You”.
Because, man, I do enough of that to myself. I don’t need people in my life to add to it. None of us do.
And by the way, this isn’t giving my kid a pass. We kindly, and firmly, remind her that sometimes cleaning up (her dishes or her body) may not be what she feels like doing in that exact moment but it is, in fact, necessary – for her well-being and all of ours. And when we are kind in our reminders, she gets up, and she gets it done.
And maybe that is another lesson right there…we could all use more kindness, to others, and to ourselves.