Because I said so!

Do as I say, not as I do. Whoever first said it, I’m sure she was somebody’s mother. Sometimes it seems like one of the primary tenets of parenting survival. Other times, it stinks of double standards, hypocrisy, and the head-in-the-quicksand approach to parenting - the “if I just assume my children’s lives aren’t as complex as mine, this will all be easier” route. Sometimes it is a reasonable solution. Stretching an allowance to cover new Pokemon cards and a candy bar is not the same as budgeting a mortgage, utilities, and putting groceries on the table. But what am I really saying when I deny my daughter the extra dollar she needs, give the lecture on not spending money you don’t have, and then whip out the plastic at the checkout? Where’s that line?

“No biting!” I admonish my son, reminding him sharply that I have no tolerance for animals or children that bite. Then I catch my significant other smirking quietly while reading the Sunday comics, and my mind flashes to the deep bruise on soft flesh barely covered by her t-shirt. No biting without consent is what I really mean, I tell myself, but I’m not going to sit here and try to explain the particulars of consent to my six-year-old. I’m big on consent as a concept with my kids, having reinforced a consistent no-means-no message ever since they could comprehend. As a parent, though, one has to stick with the “pain is bad” message, even as the irony oozes around the edges.

Parenting is about setting boundaries, creating safe space, and protecting our young. From the cupboard latches and padded corners of the toddler’s world to the curfews and over-the-shoulder computer monitoring of older kids, we remain ever vigilant against the bad, scary forces of evil out there in the world. So many things could go wrong. The implication is constant: to be a Good Parent you’d better anticipate all of the things that could go wrong. An entire industry of products and services has developed to help you. Childproofing services, Net-nanny software, home drug testing kits, and cell phones for children with GPS tracking built in. And the list goes on: movie and video game ratings, car seats and even car seat inspection stations. None of us want to be the parent on the six o’clock news. ‘NEVER LEAVE CHILD UNATTENDED’ said the sticker on the car seat I brought my tiny baby home from the hospital in. Never? I remember thinking… Never?!

Safe space is easy to define as a new parent, when one is talking about baby gates and padding sharp corners. It gets harder, and slopes rapidly toward the hypocrite’s quicksand, as they get older and safe space becomes a discussion about behaviors, choices, and associations. These days, the four horsemen of adolescence’s apocalypse are alcohol, drugs, sex, and the horrors of the Internet. You can lose a kid to any of these, or more importantly, a kid can lose him or herself. As a parent, somehow creating a safe path through those influences is as clear an imperative as locking up the cleaning products and putting away the matches was just a few years earlier. The question then becomes, what exactly is safe?

One of the things I delighted in most about coming out (besides getting to have sex with the ladies, of course), was the feeling of being freed from all the expectations of being ‘normal’. I had hopped off the prix fixe menu of life (boyfriend, fiancee, husband, motherhood, etc.), and could choose my route a la carte. Or, as I once explained, I was already a fuck up, so what did it matter if I got another tattoo. But here in Mommyland, I’m ever alert that the route I consider my ‘normal’ may be outside other people’s safe space. Occasionally, I wonder whether it is even outside my own safe space.

Sometimes I look around at my assorted friends and associates and among us we read like a laundry list of parental hazard warnings: Use of alcohol, sometimes to excess? Check. Recreational drug use? Check. Casual sex? Check. Forming relationships with strangers on the Internet? Check. I know, I know… so far it sounds like fun, right? And it goes on! Non-traditional relationships? Check. Pornography? Check (both making it and looking at it). Body mods and funky hair colors? Check. It goes on.

So where exactly will I find that safe space I, as a responsible parent, must create for my kids? How do I create it without treading into the do-as-I-say quicksand? I can’t pretend that the scary things out there don’t exist, because I know that for lots of folks, I’m one of them. Try explaining that to your kid sometime.

Actually, I find I explain a lot. I explain about the different choices people make. I teach about treating people decently and requiring that others do the same of you. I periodically throw in the preachy moral lesson about non-equivocal things like drinking and driving. And bike helmets. In general, I try to remember that the farther my head is in the sand, the sooner my kids will write me off as stupid.

At times, I do catch myself wishing for nice, normal paths through life for them, and then just as quickly remember how badly I chafed at “normal”. Still, who am I to deny them normal if it is where they truly fit into the world? While my observation has been that children of queer parents have a sort of heightened awareness of their own individuality, I suppose it is entirely possible I’ll have kids who never question their sexuality. They could grow up, get married, move to the suburbs and vote Republican. At that point all my lessons on tolerance and agreeing to disagree will really come home to roost.

So, “Model the behavior you wish to see in your child” is the modern parenting mantra that rings in my head as I harangue them about dishes left in the playroom while hurriedly clearing five days of coffee cups off my desk. I know full well that actions speak louder than words, but consistent follow through, she’s a bitch. The follow through becomes more important though as the reliance on baby-proofing declines. When a discussion with one of my boys about how anything covered by a bathing suit is personal space and other people are NOT allowed to touch you there was countered by a challenge from him, “Then how come She (my S.O.) touches you on the booty all the time?” I both laughed and cringed. Mostly though, I liked it that he felt he could call me on my shit.

We’re still in the thick of modeling behavior and setting boundaries, but I know that not far down the road, they’ll be on their own; having to set their own limits and define their own safe space. Then my job as a parent will be to back off, and cross my fingers that, while they may not do it the way I would, and it can’t be the pain- and worry-free existence that I as their mom might wish for them, they’ll find their way through. I’d really be a hypocrite if I didn’t.

Written by Darby Blue