My friend Jill always says that motherhood is not for sissies. She is soooo right!
Last night Mark had a Cub Scouts meeting. I was more than a little worried when I read the emailed agenda:
Weds., Nov. 5th: Whittling. There's nothing more enticing to a boy than a sharp knife!
Did you hear that momentary silence? That was my heart stopping.
I realized this is the difference in parenting styles of fathers vs. mothers--no mom I know would actually give her son a knife and permission to carve stuff up with it.
But I went along with it. The more I resist, the more likely Mark is to grow up a knife-obsessed psychopath (or, at the very least, a bad chef who can't properly handle knives).
The dad in charge did a great job teaching knife safety--how to open a pocket knife, how to close it, and how to safely whittle away a bar of soap. I felt better until his older son taught the boys about the "blood circle." He waved his closed knife in an invisible circle to show how far apart the kids should sit from each other for safety. I'm glad he used a closed knife, but I'd have preferred something a little more soothing than "blood circle"--maybe "safety circle"?
Then the fun began. The boys went to the tables, where they received a bar of soap, instructions for whittling a polar bear, and a wide berth. Mark whittled away at his bear, which evolved into a fish, then a seal, and finally, into a race car. He couldn't stop carving away at it.
The kid next to him also started with a bear, but whittled away his soap until it was as big as my thumb. "Look!" he shouted. "I made a chair!"
The boy on the other side of Mark whittled a really good polar bear, but he wouldn't stop either. The boys realized this might be their one shot at using a knife, so they refused to give it up. They just kept shaving away the soap pieces, making miniature versions of...well, not polar bears.
I stood behind Mark, showing him how to hold the soap and knife. ("Grip the soap," I said. "I don't want to see any fingers!") He rolled his eyes and ignored me, silently wishing me away. (I could almost hear him thinking, "You're a bad mom! A very BAD mom! TO THE CORNFIELD!")
He grunted and pulled the soap away from me--he clearly did not want help. I realized maybe a small cut would teach him more about knife safety than my words ever could.
And so I let him whittle. The dads were very helpful without being nervous or overbearing, so I took my cue from them. One dad even remarked that if a boy did bleed, the other kids could earn their first-aid badges. I thought that was a fine example of making lemonade when life hands you lemons.
I watched Mark's soap disappear down to a tiny car, which he placed into a soap box he pronounced the garage. He parked it between a tiny white chair and a polar bear. And when he ran off to the sink, I quietly slipped the knife into my pocket and breathed a sigh of relief.
"We did it!" a dad proclaimed. "I can't believe we got through the activity injury-free!" I smiled--I wasn't the only nervous parent after all.
At the end of the night, the kids got snacks, and the parents got a spreadsheet of future activities. I scanned the list and immediately found the one we're doing next--watching T.V. Sure, it's a sub-step of the "Getting Information" activity, but I don't care. Watching T.V. doesn't require a "blood circle."
Which is more than I can say for whittling...
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