The validation you'll never get

Doing nice things for your children is a long game

On Friday night in a moment of frustration when my children refused to go to sleep, I flat-out told them they were being annoying. Janet Lansbury would surely disapprove, but it was true, if also completely ineffective at changing anything. 

Because it was the end of the work week and we were tired and didn’t feel like cooking, Jacob and I had exchanged a flurry of texts late afternoon plotting what we thought would be a child-pleasing evening. We’d order Indian food—samosas, tandoori chicken, and naan —shared favorites in our house, and pick a movie to watch together. 

Jacob and I suggested “Ponyo” or “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” two Hayao Miyazaki movies we knew the kids would enjoy if they watched, but were unlikely to pick themselves. We settled on the latter, about a young witch who is spending a year away from home in an ambiguous European-ish seaside city, training in her skills and live-working in a bakery, and got out plates and silverware. 

Julian refused to eat, and Ada wandered around the house dropping bits of samosa onto the rug. We implored them them sit at the table, trying to minimize the required vacuuming, encouraging them to eat so we could start the movie. Halfway through Julian declared it boring and said he hated black cats. Three quarters of the way through he demanded we start a new movie. When the credits rolled, the meltdowns started and Julian began hollering about dessert. It was clear bedtime wasn’t going to go very smoothly. 

The exasperation of this moment is partially summed up in the now-infamous book, Go the F*ck to Sleep, but I think more broadly reflects the thought of: “I did something nice for you and not only don’t you appreciate it, you’re sh*tting all over it.” It’s one thing to not eat the dinner that you spent time-money-energy making. It’s another thing to also ruin dinner and the movie for everyone else. 

Internal dialogue tempers and rationalizes the way things are. Sure, you spent $75 on dinner. Sure, you let them watch a movie. You’re an adult. The kids are little. It’s late. They’re tired. Validate their feelings, say literally thousands of articles on the internet about why kids need to have their emotions acknowledged during moments of meltdown. But what’s an appropriate expectation of behavior, and what about your own damn feelings? Does this effort just go into the ether? Am I stooping by expecting any validation at all?

The tantrum that was supposedly-about-dessert continued for another half hour. Ada finally resigned that she wouldn’t be getting a popsicle after recognizing that Julian was escalating. Finally we negotiated that if he returned to the table and actually ate the dinner he’d abandoned on his plate two hours prior, he could have a small dessert. This happened, uneventfully, until Ada—ever the hall monitor—realized what was going on, and came to make a statement about what she believed to be unjust and deeply unfair. 

We regretted having negotiated—a rookie mistake—and vowed there’d be no more dessert. EVER. We were removing dessert altogether! I exasperatedly shouted my line about them being annoying and it being 10 p.m. and now both kids were weeping and still nobody was going to bed. Whatever the original intention of this evening—a pleasant, children-pleasing, tantrum-free family movie night—it was not happening. 

There was no compliance, and no gratitude, just a mess of tears and sad, tired bodies on the ground. But also, later—while drinking red wine while laying horizontally on the couch—I thought about how there’s a reason there’s not a single article about children needing to validate their parents’ feelings, because it’s not a thing. Their “validation” is their sheer existence, their hugs, their being unexpectedly curious and sweet, their saying they love you when you’re struggling to keep your shit together, them suddenly complying after an entire morning of not, them saying please when you didn’t ask, them being surprisingly pleasant in the company of others, them getting dressed on their own for the first time. It’s not and will never be them thanking you, verbally, for the Indian food and movie that you thought would entertain them when you were very tired on Friday night. And that is ok.

Recommendations:

• Asian Grocery (delivery!): Last week I tried out Say Weee! which has a broad selection of Asian (and Hispanic) groceries by delivery. I loaded up on dried shrimp and gochugaru (korean red pepper flakes), soup dumplings, frozen ramen, and sweet rice flour. I highly recommend this yuzu sparkling juice because yuzu is a superior citrus.

• Cookbooks: Speaking of Korean food, my MIL sent me Eric Kim’s new cookbook Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home. I’ve always been intimidated to try and recreate the foods I grew up eating, but he makes making kimchi, and inventing your own takes on stews and Korean classics enticing and approachable. I’ve also been cooking a lot from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Simple, a gorgeous veggie / seasonal forward book.

• Home goods: Slope Home is a beautiful and well-curated small shop on 5th Avenue in Park Slope. I got a mug from Denmark-based ceramicist Julie Damhus and I love it.

• Perfect solo lunch: The bento boxes at Acre in Greenpoint. I’m partial to the salmon, but you can’t go wrong.

• Some stuff that’s going in the kids’ Easter baskets: These bunny socks, bunny Legos, toothbrushes (I’m a fun mom!), flair tip pens. Can I wean my children off candy?

• Circus afternoon: Catch one of the monthly performances of Muse Production’s ABCircque and Play, half performance and half playtime. Terrifying aerials + a ball pit for your kids. Very Bushwick vibes (low key, facial hair, run-down warehouse, etc). Get a delicious beer at Evil Twin Brewing afterwards.

• To read: “The Millenial Aesthetic Comes For Your Vacuum Cleaner” (New Yorker) b/c who doesn’t love a take on the millenial aesthetic.

Would love recommendations on other non-candy things to put in Easter baskets/to use for an egg hunt. See you next week!