I caught myself saying: “No, I don’t mind if you don’t eat your dinner. You can have it for breakfast tomorrow morning. And if you don’t like it then, maybe it will taste good when I give it back to you for dinner tomorrow night. If not then, well maybe the next breakfast. Eventually, if I don’t give you anything else, this will probably taste really good. As for me, I’m going to finish my dinner and maybe have a little ice cream for desert…”
We have ways to make you eat.
Or I’m a monkey trainer. Lately this one has worked: She was eating peanuts. I took the bag away. If you do a problem in your homework, I’ll give you a peanut. Suddenly she’s the queen of homework. What took an hour before the Legume Era now takes ten minutes.
my friend remarked once remarked to her 2 year old sobber: what will you do when the russians come back if you’re already crying like this over nothing?
and i laughed, and she said her mother used to say “nazis” instead of russians.
so yeah, the circle gets wider, but the shape of the spiral remains mostly the same. our mothers’ words in our mouths. but surely our intentions are different? surely the application of some degree of irony makes it less like nagging and more like a punchline?
and about your dream: with the mailman? kids these days!
“Yesterday I caught myself saying…”
I caught myself saying: “No, I don’t mind if you don’t eat your dinner. You can have it for breakfast tomorrow morning. And if you don’t like it then, maybe it will taste good when I give it back to you for dinner tomorrow night. If not then, well maybe the next breakfast. Eventually, if I don’t give you anything else, this will probably taste really good. As for me, I’m going to finish my dinner and maybe have a little ice cream for desert…”
We have ways to make you eat.
Or I’m a monkey trainer. Lately this one has worked: She was eating peanuts. I took the bag away. If you do a problem in your homework, I’ll give you a peanut. Suddenly she’s the queen of homework. What took an hour before the Legume Era now takes ten minutes.
my friend remarked once remarked to her 2 year old sobber: what will you do when the russians come back if you’re already crying like this over nothing?
and i laughed, and she said her mother used to say “nazis” instead of russians.
so yeah, the circle gets wider, but the shape of the spiral remains mostly the same. our mothers’ words in our mouths. but surely our intentions are different? surely the application of some degree of irony makes it less like nagging and more like a punchline?
and about your dream: with the mailman? kids these days!