I’ve been thinking about the parenting philosophies that tell you not to say the word “no.” The claim is that the word “no” is ineffective because your kids tune it out, and that saying “yes” is more empowering, explains what they ought to do, and sets your kid up for success. But kids are not this simple, and I wonder if the people who give the advice about not saying no actually have kids—or had kids when they made up this advice.
I think about all the times I’ve said no on Saturday morning alone:
“Stop licking your sister.”
“You cannot lick your sister.”
“Julian, NO. STOP licking your sister.”
“There is no licking in this house!”
I’m more and more annoyed and my annoyance has translated into an arbitrary rule about licking, a rule I didn’t know we needed. They begin to wrestle on the floor after this, which I also say no too, for the sake of the neighbors below us, then after another reprimand, they begin to chase each other around the house.
“No running!’
“No snacks until after you’ve finished your breakfast.”
“Stop pushing the ice machine on the refrigerator,” as the ice drops to the floor.
“No you cannot go outside in a t-shirt, it’s 25 degrees.”
I put on the new Pixar movie, “Turning Red,” at 9 a.m. because we have four hours before we’re leaving the house and it doesn’t otherwise seem like we’ll make it till then. They’re peaceful for the next hour and forty minutes, the sedating effect of the iPad at work. I can hear the soundtrack thumping and hear Jacob shouting at the kids a few times to move the screen further from their faces.
Ada is obsessed with rules but also can’t seem to abide by many of them. She knows she shouldn’t eat candy in bed, but she does anyways. She knows she has to wear her helmet while scooting, but chronically tries to get out of it. She knows she needs to eat snacks at the table or the kitchen counter, but always gravitates to the couch. Often the situations they create constantly push us to state new rules—like the licking one—that are both specific and absurd to say out loud.
“Stop touching all the grapes,” we implore at a grocery store in Flushing yesterday, as the kids poke one bunch after another. “You can look, not touch.”
Jacob has also asked the kids to not touch every button in the elevator at the New World Mall, though this is for slightly different reasons (germs, COVID, etc.). Later on, he’s also asking them not to touch the dirty crusted-over rock salt that’s spread all over the sidewalk to melt the ice.
“Are there germs?” Julian asks, remembering the elevator conversation.
“No, it’s made of chemicals and will leave a residue on your hands,” Jacob explains.
“Is it toxic,” Julian asks, with a vested interest in things that you can ingest and kill you.
“Yes,” Jacob answers, knowing this is a can of worms.
The rest of the way home Julian is in a loop. “We have to wash our hands because the salt is toxic. I touched it with 3 fingers. If I lick it I will die.” He seems quite gleeful.
I think about how we’ve told them not to touch the produce, the elevator buttons, the rock salt. Are these rules or are these reprimands? Are they just going to keep touching everything until we explain the touch-ability of every single object?
Ada’s transgression of rules is also at odds with her desire to police everyone else. Julian is eating one of those Fage yogurts where the jam is in one side of the container and the yogurt is on the other. You’re supposed to mix them together to eat them, but he’s sneaking bites of just-jam because he’s four and it’s delicious. Ada was doing the same yesterday, but his doing so now is unbearable to her. “Mom! Julian is eating the jam! Just the jam! Stop him!” I tell her not to worry about it, and that I’ve got it covered, but she gets in his face and tells him she’ll be keeping an eye on him. This is how it always escalates into full-blown sibling warfare.
Later in the day we go to a deluxe projection-based puppet show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The theater manager announces that you cannot take pictures or video during the performance. At the end of the show, the cast is doing a demonstration in which they’re showing backstage how the puppeteering is set-up, and how various scenes—which combine animation, projection, live-action, and puppets—actually come together. I snap a picture to show Jacob, who is not at the show with us, and has been waiting in the car after grocery shopping to drive us home.
In the car I show Jacob the photo on my phone and Ada chirps up from the back. “Mom, you can’t take pictures! It’s not allowed. I’m going to report you.” I decide to play this out.
“Who are you going to report me too?” I ask.
“To the theater. Or the police,” she says.
“What do you think will happen?” I prod.
“You will go to jail,” she says.
“For how long?” I ask.
“2 months, at least,” she decides, arbitrarily.
“How do you think you’ll like it when I’m in jail for 2 months?” I wonder out loud.
She pauses, and says, “Well, maybe just for 2 days actually.”
She’s considering the idea of consequences and what this rule is about. That maybe some rules matter more than others. That it’s confusing who is enforcing anything. That maybe rules are meant to be broken even though she knows some—like stopping at the corner and waiting for an adult to cross the street—are extremely serious.
“Be consistent,” they say, about enforcement and consequences, which we try to be, within the limitations of normal humans. But then I think about the “don’t touch” thing and how the words are consistent yet the reasons are inconsistent, I feel more empathetic. That the kids are only as confused as the adults are about why we’re doing what we’re doing, who is in charge, and who made up all these damn rules anyways.
Recommendations for the kids:
To romp in the rain: This Kuling x Maja spring line for kids is v. cute.
To watch: “Turning Red,” the new Pixar movie on Disney+, about Meilin Lee, a Canadian Chinese girl whose journey through puberty includes sometimes turning into a red panda. Also cue: Pixar’s first solo female director + first Asian-led film.
To read: We just cracked into Judy Blume’s Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing, the first in the five-book Fudge collection, and it’s so fun to re-live this series as an adult. I recommend getting the box set.
Bedspread: This floral duvet which looks like Liberty fabric, but is actually $35 organic cotton from H&M that I posted on my IG stories last week after getting it for Ada and a huge number of people wrote me asking about. (It’s sold out but you can get notified for restock)
Recommendations for the grown-ups:
To read: Eula Biss’ Having and Being Had, a book I started last Friday and read at every possible moment over the weekend. It’s about consumption, work, and investment — how we reconcile and feel about what we buy, our interior dialogues about the value of work, art, and other labors (of love and otherwise), and how we’re told to, and make choices about where we put our energy and money. Poignant and resonant.
To peruse: The second issue of Mother Tongue magazine, a new (print!) magazine about the often harsh realities of motherhood. Their IG is also great.
To Visit (and eat): The lower level food court at New World Mall in Flushing for the freshest dumplings, bubble tea, hand-pulled noodles, takoyaki, and much more.
To cook: the fat noodles with roasted mushrooms and crushed herb sauce from Carla Lalli Music’s That Sounds So Good. The pasta of my dreams.
To do: Go to the Justice for Asian Women rally tomorrow, March 16th (in NYC, ATL, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, SF, Washington DC, Detroit, Denver, and the Twin Cities) to remember the victims of the Atlanta Spa shootings and be a voice against the continuing (and rising) spate of Anti-Asian violence.
See you next week. Stay safe + enjoy the spring-like temps.
P.S. You can now read Making it Work in the new Substack app for iPhone.