One thing I've learned in parenting
boys is that they thrive on competition. These days, it seems that every activity in
our house must include some competitive element for it to be worth the
undertaking. For example, this is a
typical exchange between me and my boys:
Me: "Does anyone want to help Mommy sort the laundry?"
First Son: "Let's make a race out of it, and the first to finish gets to call himself Grandmaster of the Laundry."
Second Son: "Do we earn points for every pair of socks that we match?"
Third Son: "Can we trade points for candy?"
The other night, I overheard my 8-year old instructing his brothers on the rules of what I like to call "Bathletics". This is a nightly ritual that occurs when
obedient children in other homes quietly take their baths. In our house, however, my boys compete in an
Olympic style event that involves holding your breath under water while trying
to splash water far enough to hit the mirror over the vanity, and various other
useless and time-consuming feats of athleticism. My firstborn had created an elaborate scoring
system to judge the performance of his brothers, with its own array of penalties
as well as titles to be achieved.
On this evening, the three older boys were sitting on the edge of the bathtub. They had added a new event to their competition: Make a circle around the bathtub by scooting around the edge without using one's hands, while keeping both feet planted in the bath water. One of them was timing the event with a stopwatch, and another was judging his brothers' form by calling out numbers.
"You've made a
mess!" I cried, looking at the puddles of water on the tile.
"Mom, we're in the
middle of something," my 8-year old informed me.
"I'm about to
win!" my 6-year old exclaimed, scooting his bottom in a frantic fashion.
"Your form is all
wrong!" his older brother shouted, "I'm giving you a '7' because
you're using your hands!"
"Disqualify him!"
my 3-year old chimed in.
"How does he even know
the word 'disqualify'?" I interjected. But by now, the three of them were
so fervently embroiled in their own argument that you'd think they were senators investigating steroid use in major league
baseball.
It was at that moment when I
started to wonder whether all the chess tournaments, piano competitions and
karate belt tests were having a negative impact on the boys. After all, they have been immersed in extracurricular
activities that involve the earning of points, titles, certificates, even
colors. So I turned to my resident expert on boy behavior, and asked my husband
if I should be concerned. He gave me the
usual look of incredulity and replied matter of factly: "They're
boys. That's what boys do."
I love my husband for always
giving me the simplest answer (that also happens to be the correct one),
because he knows I can complicate any parenting dilemma by overthinking. Then I looked at my boys, who were now clearly
having the time of their lives rating each other on their splash technique, and
realized (for the nth time) that when raising boys, I need to stop thinking
like a girl.
The truth is, my boys become
invigorated when there is a prize to be earned.
All this time, I had been afraid that applying standards and
measurements would create an unhealthy atmosphere of competition between them,
when competition, in fact, is what makes their lives interesting. So the next time one of my boys asks if he
and his brothers can race to finish their vegetables, I'll tell him,
"First one can be called King of the Broccoli."