Tough Love

I consider myself a patient mother, but Jesus, do I have to repeat myself twenty times for my kid to do some pretty basic things? It’s not like I expect them to remember a detailed multistep process, like how to reproduce nuclear fusion in the kitchen out of a rubber band, a paper clip, and an old potato. Just the basics, like get your shoes on before we leave the house, or take a jacket because it’s below freezing outside, or brush your teeth, or don’t forget to pack your lunch, since we eat lunch pretty much every fucking day of our lives.

 Yes, it’s true. We do eat lunch every day. It’s one of the three main meals in which we indulge, to nourish our bodies. And we do it often enough so that it should be routine, second nature really, like breathing or peeing or watching mindless television. I take the providing three square meals a day thing pretty seriously. I make sure we have lots of fresh, wholesome foods on hand. I give my family a healthy breakfast and a hearty dinner, chock full of nutrients and fiber and free of chemicals. As far as lunch goes, however, it’s every man and child for him- and herself. At the ages of ten and twelve, my daughters are old enough to be responsible for their midday meal on a school day. Clearly, they have choices, two of them to be exact, eating at school or packing a lunch. It’s not an overwhelming decision, is it?

God forbid my children eat a cafeteria lunch. They firmly believe that filthy insects without hairnets are preparing school meals. It doesn’t matter if it’s a slice of pizza or a chicken nugget or steamed broccoli or a banana; whatever the food, they wouldn’t eat it anymore than they would chew used gum from the underside of a table. My younger daughter, S, will occasionally eat a grilled cheese or mozzarella sticks, since it’s hard to mess those up. The tween, however, is convinced she saw a hair in her soup back in the fourth grade and hasn’t purchased a school lunch in almost three years.

Every school night, after dinner, I get up to put away leftovers and clean up the kitchen. And every night, I remind my daughters to pack their lunches. S doesn’t need to be told twice; she gets up from the table and picks out a balanced assortment of foods to sustain her for a full day of learning. The tween, on the other hand, does not have the attention span to persist at a task like lunch packing. She requires constant reminders and still cannot remember that every day she needs a fruit and a protein and a starch and a dairy item and a beverage. I check behind her most of the time, either pointing out that a six month old baby eats a bigger lunch than what’s in her box, or when I am feeling extra beaten down, just finishing the job myself. It gets old, you know?

 Last night, as usual, I reminded my daughters to pack their lunches. S complied, as she normally does. The tween wandered into the other room, texting furiously. She decided later to take a walk. I reminded her to pack her lunch before she left. When she came home, I asked her if she packed her lunch, knowing full well that the answer was no. She said she would after she practiced piano, another part of the daily routine she hates. Before she went upstairs to shower, I reminded her to pack her lunch. If you are keeping count, that was four reminders to pack her lunch. Which is also part of the daily routine. And that’s the part I am getting really tired of.

So last night, I stopped reminding her. I stopped enabling her. I left her alone. She went upstairs and got ready for bed, even coming back downstairs for more water, and still she forgot to pack her lunch. I went to bed and didn’t give it another thought. This morning, when we came downstairs for breakfast, there she was, eating her cereal. I took out her sister’s lunch box and put an ice pack in it before setting it on the kitchen table. The tween didn’t notice that her lunch box wasn’t on the table, like it is every day of her life. I brushed my teeth and got ready to drive the girls to school. S put her lunch box in her back pack and walked out to the car.

The tween grabbed her shoes, then looked in her back pack and noticed her lunch box. “Did you put that in there for me?” she asked me.
“Nope, I haven’t touched your lunch box in days,” I told her.
She turned around and asked my friend MJ, who had spent the night with us, if she put it in her back pack. “Not me,” MJ said. MJ doesn’t pack her tween’s lunch either. MJ barely feeds herself lunch. She is not known for her lunchtime skills.
The tween didn’t find it peculiar that her lunchbox was inside her back pack. She just shrugged her shoulders and got in the car.

 On the way to school, I asked her how she would get her lunch in the cafeteria if she needed to buy it. She said she had no idea because she had never bought anything in the school cafeteria. I knew for a fact she had over twenty dollars in her account, so I said nothing. I wanted her to learn to be responsible for herself. I dropped her off at school and told her what I do every morning: make good choices.

Around 10:30, the time the tween eats her lunch, I commented to my husband that she was, at the very moment, realizing she did not remember to pack a lunch. I was feeling both guilty and proud of myself for teaching her a lesson, even if I couldn’t be there to see it. I couldn’t wait to pick her up from school in the afternoon.

When she got in my car, she was in a happy mood, chatting and telling me the daily stories of who got in trouble for what. I asked her how lunch was and she just smiled. She said she had to borrow money from her friend for a slice of pizza because she couldn’t remember her account number. Plus, the computer system was down, so they couldn’t access her account if they wanted to. She ate, as I knew she would, but I wanted more details. I wanted to know what she thought when she opened her light lunch box and found it full of yesterday’s smelly food wrappers. She would not give me the satisfaction. She also did not seem scarred by her lesson in responsibility, although she did admit it got her attention.

When you have to teach your child a tough lesson, sometimes letting them discover it on their own is the best way. Ultimately, the tween knows she has to do some things for herself, that her mother will not always be there to protect her from the world. Seriously, it was just a slice of pizza, not a terrorist attack. I doubt she will even remember it by Monday night, when I again will have to remind her four times to pack her lunch.