Who’s the fiercest of them all?

Husband: Guys, who’s more fierce, daddy or mommy?

Both kids: DADDY!

Kirsten: Mommy is not fierce at all but daddy is one thousand million super duper giant fierce.

Tru: Ya, daddy is VERY VERY VERY VERY FIERCE.

Me: Hey! Mommy can be very very very fierce too, you know.

Both kids: *looks at each other, then…* Hahahahahahahahahha

***

Tru: I wish I can be an adult because adults don’t do any wrong things.

Me: Um, wow, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Tru: When children do wrong things, adults can make us go to the naughty corner but when adults do wrong things, who will make them go naughty corner?

Me: That’s true but you know what? I actually wish I could just go to the naughty corner every time I make a mistake. When adults make mistakes, it’s usually far worse.

Tru: Other adults will scold you?

Me: Well, yeah, sometimes. And some of them can be really mean. Or it can be way worse than scoldings. Like sometimes when adults make mistakes at work, they get fired from their jobs. Or if they commit a traffic offence, the traffic police will give them a ticket. Or if they do drugs, they can get very sick. Or if they do really bad stuff like killing other people, they get sent to prison for a long, long time. Any number of bad things can happen when adults make mistakes. But kids just get to face the wall when they make a mistake, that’s not so bad right?

Tru: *looks appalled*

Me: When mommy was your age, I got disciplined by Grandpa and Grandma a lot so I learnt not to make most of those mistakes as an adult.

Tru: *silence*

Me: I know it sounds crazy but we do it because we love you and we want you to be better. So you won’t have to learn these lessons when you get to my age. It’s far more painful to learn it then.

Tru: *silence*

Me: Hey son, you know we always love you SUPER SUPER DUPER HUGE GIANT MUCH no matter what happens, don’t you.

Tru: Yes yes I know I know…

***

I didn’t tell him then but of all the mistakes I could ever make, I’m most terrified of doing it wrong as a parent. Those lessons, I didn’t get to learn as a kid so we’re mostly winging it as we go along. And there’s no real way to know if you’re doing it right until it’s too late.

Sometimes, I think that perhaps we should maintain some illusion of perfection as parents until they’re old enough to know otherwise but then I also think that a far more important lesson is for them to know that parents make mistakes too – we just try our best to learn from them and do better next time.

I hope we don’t mess things up with these incredible kids.

Most of all, I hope they know that we really do love them unconditionally.