From the Mouths of Babes

I was covertly watching an altercation between Nina and MJ a few weeks back.   With personalities as different as night and day, a disagreement can either be pretty amusing or horrifying.   The disputes usually revolve around someone touching someones matchbox cars, or denuding someone else's Polly-Pocket-Dolls.  Reasons best left for them to figure out, and for Mom to not intervene.  But in this fight, Mj was using some force that didn't set well with me and Nina was cowering back in tears....

While MJ was in his timeout,  I comforted Nina.  "Don't let anyone push you around like that" I say in all my wisdom, "especially boys - they are no smarter than girls".

"What about Papa?" Says Nina.  "What about Papa?" I ask.

"Isn't he smarter than you?"

Amazingly, I was dumbstruck into silence for a few seconds.  Not really sure if I was going to fall over laughing or launch into a full-blown lecture on the history of the Women's Movement.  But I stayed calm and did the best I could.

"Papa does many things very well that Mama does not, " I say, "But Mama is good at many things too.  It does not mean that Papa is smarter than Mama."

Nina ponders this for a few moments, brightens up a bit and then starts listing my talents...  "Oh yeah! You are good at things too, Mama!  You are really good at doing the dishes....and doing the laundry.... and giving us good things to eat!"

Now I'm barely concealing a laugh and I give her a hug and thank her for noticing my 'smartness'.  Of course, I later recount the whole thing to Hubbie and express my concerns that perhaps I'm not being a strong-enough role model for Nina.   His opinion was that I was reading into it too much.

Perhaps so.   But it has my eyes open to how strongly our actions do model for our children.    Nina does not see me at the office supporting our business, nor has she shadowed me all that much in my photography.  But my hope is that in time she finds power within the love, comfort and stability that this 'domestic diva' tries to impress upon her.   (And also, that she develops a good left hook the next time her brother tries to push her around:)