Wednesday October 2, 2024 // Early Morning
Last night I had a moment. It was nearing 7:45 PM – the you must be in bed by this time time. My kid had left something downstairs. It was something so trivial that 12 hours later I don’t recall what it was. But it was the most important thing in the world to him right then. He wanted me to go get it. Cue a parental decision point.
Am I teaching him to be lazy if I just go?
Is he learning to walk all over me if I go get it?
Is he going to throw a fit if I say no and man I’m too tired to deal with this right now.
Quickly, now. There’s a 5-year-old with a request with the patience of a hungry dog in front of a bowl full of kibble. What do you do?
I opted for telling him to go get it himself. Anddd what do you think happened?
“I don’t want to! I want you to go!”
“Bud, you left [whatever it was] down there. You gotta go get it.”
“Come with me.”
It was dark downstairs. Lights were out. It’s an autumn evening and the sun is down already. He was scared to do it alone. Cue, yet another, parental decision point and this was where I had my moment (more on that in a second).
“Alright, I’ll go halfway downstairs where I can watch you get [the thing].”
The deal was struck. The plan was put into action. The item was retrieved. And somehow right afterwards bedtime was put off by something else for another few minutes.
As I stood there at my second parental decision point I had that saying creep front-of-mind – that one day you’ll pick up your kid for the last time and most likely you won’t even know it was the last time. So when my kid asked me to come with him, I did it. One day very soon he’s not even going to ask to go downstairs alone. He’s just going to do it by himself. Whether that’s at 5 years old or 7 or 10, he’s still going to do it and be a well-rounded, good human. Tonight, he wanted his dad. And I obliged.
It’s all going by so fast.
– Josh // Stairmaster
Related Reading: Snow Day