🍭 Soul Snacks

2.5 min read

Dear Snackers,

I ran into a situation this week that got me so pissed off, the steam coming out of my ears may have been enough to ignite lift off. Because of the fact that the situation was over a fucking water bottle, luckily, I was able to ground myself enough to stay here on earth, but it essentially ruined my morning and, more importantly, got me to thinking about the root of it all. Here’s what went down: my daughter needed a new water bottle for school and, like the asshole mom I am, I bought her one. My daughter is highly particular, which of course triggers me because I could literally outfit my boys in brown paper bags and send them off to school and they wouldn’t have boo to say about it, but not the girl child – the girl child has visions. When she saw the new water bottle, which is the same water bottle as her last water bottle but in a different color, she unabashedly declared, “I don’t know if I really like that water bottle.” To which I replied, “I don’t really care.” And then I took the water bottle, placed it on the other side of the counter and continued, “You can leave it here and go to school with no water bottle, that’s fine.” I then doubled down, raising the tone of my voice to explain to her that she should be grateful to have a new water bottle and be thanking me for it and that she sounds very ungrateful…and then…I kept going, “Water bottles are not a fashion statement!” I quipped with a certain immature pride about me. 

And just as sure as a bear shits in the woods, this detonated another epic mother/daughter standoff, after which I am almost always left wondering, who is the actual asshole here? What quickly became apparent is that the distaste for the water bottle had nothing to do with the water bottle itself - it had to do with her lack of choice over the water bottle and, yet, the only thing going through my mind was, if someone had given me a water bottle when I was her age, I would have nearly soiled myself in glee that I had my very own vehicle with which to get water into my mouth, rather than French kissing the water fountain or straining my neck trying to get my mouth under the faucet of the shallow sinks in the girl’s bathroom….and here she is complaining? Oh. Hell. No. The standoff continued throughout our walk to school and did not conclude until I was able to get her to giggle over something silly just before she had to walk into the building – even though I was right, I won’t let my kids go into school without a real hug and kiss. Alas, my intrusive thoughts over school shootings haunt me. 

After I had cooled off, I got to thinking about how she and I had been scrolling the internet together over the last few weeks, as I allowed her to choose each of her back to school items. She didn’t get a ton: a pair of pants, a few new t-shirts, a cool jacket and some new sneakers. I don’t particularly enjoy shopping, so the convenience of doing this stuff online with my kids is a huge win for me, but their options are essentially unlimited. They don’t have to settle for something in a color that was their second choice, or wait months for their favorite back to school clothing catalog to arrive in the mail, fill out an order form, mail it back to the company, and wait again for their items to arrive. They simply watch as I click “buy now” on Amazon and wake up the next day with the fucking thing on our doorstep. It’s the same with their streaming TV shows and immediate access to whatever song on earth they want to listen to at the push of a button, while I had to endure the pain of listening to the entire Top 20 countdown on the radio just praying “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul would come on before bed time. 

Here’s what I know: I’m not going to rewind time and make my own life more miserable by taking them outlet shopping or banning Netflix, but I can do some more things to encourage a greater sense of gratitude. Do I want to send my kids down a good old mom-induced spiral of shame? No. But am I restrained enough to help myself from laying the smack down sometimes? Also no. I used to do something where, if I felt my kids were being bratty or ungrateful, I would send them to write a list of five things they are grateful for, but like all good practices, sometimes you forget and need to remind yourself to get back on track. If I had taken a moment to think before I reacted to my daughter’s initial comment about her new water bottle, I might have remembered to do this with her in that moment, rather than lose my top. What I can strive for now is to take a beat when I feel my blood start to boil, and remember some more productive ways of dealing with my kids, so they don’t morph into a total product of the era of immediate gratification from which they hail….but also under my breath I will absolutely be ripping them a new one. 

Caitlin 

• READ: Here is an article that has some decent tips for raising grateful kids, though the part about shutting off the AC in July can fuck right off.

• LISTEN: Save this playlist for when you’re feeling like you need to sing at the top of your lungs.