It was early evening and I’d been futzing around the kitchen, doing this and that. But it was strange: I had a faint sense of being thwarted, as if some invisible hand had stopped me from finishing a task I’d forgotten I was doing. What was it?
I put some lunchboxes away, wiped up a bit of spilled milk, and scanned the countertops for a visual clue. Had I left something unstirred? No, things were simmering. Had I failed to defrost? No again.
It was only when a child came into the room and inquired about dinner that I remembered: “Aha! I was preparing cauliflower!”
It was gone. Some bad actor had purloined the florets that I had dismantled, parboiled, and left in a colander to drain. Some youthful malefactor had had the temerity to think that he — instinctively I knew it was the “he” — could forestall the nutritious onslaught of life-giving cauliflower if he could get me to forget that I’d started preparing it.
The light of experience had shown him that a mother diverted near dinnertime is a mother who can be bent to a child’s will. In frustration, such a mother might even say: “It’s too late now to cook this [obnoxious foodstuff]. We’d better just make a salad and order pizza.”
Well, too bad for him, because the light of experience shines for all! A year ago a bunch of kale had disappeared from the fridge. A few days afterward, it had fallen practically on my head when I removed a box of Arborio rice that had been strategically placed in front of it.
I wouldn’t be fooled again. Eventually, I found the missing vegetable in the warming oven. The boy had pushed it cleverly to the back, so that a person opening the drawer just a bit might easily miss it.
Apart from making me grin, the incident highlights a persistent tension in child raising. We parents have the right to expect obedience. We’re in charge, and just as it’s our duty ideally to raise children with firm kindness, it’s their duty to do what we say. This isn’t merely for our convenience: Being able to follow reasonable rules makes life more orderly and productive. A child who can rub along pleasantly at home is likely to get along nicely once he’s on his own.
At the same time, we’re not trying to raise androids. Children need to have spirit, and daring, and definitely a bit of humor. So when one’s son absconds with the cauliflower and hides it, is the correct response to scold him — or to laugh? On this occasion, it was an easy call.
Much later that evening, my husband arrived home after an extra-long session at work. As I put together a plateful of supper for him, he went to the kitchen counter, pulled out a chair, and unexpectedly solved another mystery. There on the seat lay a neat little cellophane-wrapped container.
“Aha!” I laughed, “So that’s where they hid the mushrooms!”
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
