Earning My Badges

I propose that parents should receive merit badges for various parenting milestones they pass: visits to the hospital, successful handling of temper tantrums, first functional day with three hours or less of sleep, among others. Last week I earned my "Use of a Ridiculous Parenting Phrase or Strategy" badge.

On the drive home from Hartland, Maren was playing a "game" with Malcolm which seemed mostly to be an excuse for hitting him in the head with a book. Malcolm wasn't exactly a willing participant in the "game," understandably. Eventually I turned around in the seat and said very sternly, "Maren, if you hit your brother one more time with that book... uh... I'll... you'll be in really big trouble."

What a failure of imagination. Although strangely effective. I think the power in the open-ended threat is that it could be anything. It could be the worst thing imaginable. It might involve mushrooms or dragons or gravity reversal or the landfill, or some combination thereof. Or, in my case, being the housekeeper in a mansion inhabited by preschoolers and wild beasts.