The other day, Mark and I were eating dinner. He dared me to not eat the last couple french fries, and since I wasn't feeling all that well, I just shrugged.
"No problem," I told him. "I'm not hungry, anyway."
Which is not what a competitive kid likes to hear. So he rephrased the challenge.
"I bet you can't resist those fries," he baited me. "If you eat them, then you are under my control! You have to do whatever I say!"
Which again, due to my lackluster health, proved no challenge.
But he talked himself into it. As we scooted out of the table, he reached down and ate the last few fries.
"A ha!" I half-yelled. "You lose. Guess I get to control you now."
This time, he shrugged. "You're the mom," he told me. "You already control me."
And then we both giggled. Because even though I like to think of myself as more of a guide, a lifetime of experiences that will help transition him into a caring, respectful adult, I realized that's not how he sees me (or my job) at all.
Instead, he sees me as his all-controlling, all-powerful try-to-ruin-his-fun-at-every-opportunity mom. I am the master of his destiny, the controller of all he does, says, and receives, whose main job in life is to ruin his.
And so I giggled. And didn't correct him. Because hey, at the end of the day, I'm okay with that job description. As I've learned from Supernanny, and from my own parents growing up, a little bit of fear never hurt anybody.
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