Page 17 - Perfect Parents, Perfect Children, and Other Fairy Tales
P. 17
Disasters
Mothers know that disasters are going to happen.
We hope they won’t, but they do, and with
surprising regularity.
If a child is quiet for more than about 32 seconds,
it’s high time to check on them. They could have
emptied out their whole dresser or made clouds of
flour in the kitchen. They might be using a
permanent marker to draw a mural on a younger
sibling, or the more adventurous ones might have
one leg over the windowsill of a second story
window.
If that silence is followed by the sound of a toilet
flushing and then a quiet, “uh-oh”, then it’s time to
run, not walk, to the crime scene.
Most mothers get pretty annoyed or upset when
these things happen. I know I used to. But one day I
learned from a more experienced mother, and it
changed my whole outlook.
She cheerfully explained that disasters are going to
happen every day. So she decided to just plan on
that, and then, when they did happen, she could just
12
