Ten Thousand Words

Yesterday I got my hair washed. I told my stylist, Courtney, that I had recently made a discovery that I wasn't sure I liked. I have known forever that I am a perfectionist, like my mom and my sister. The thing that surprised me is that I'm a control freak as well. Hang with me here, but...

Jordan Peterson has a rule, "Don't let your children do something that would cause you to not like them." Of course that's when they are growing up. When they become adults they do stuff and hopefully their dye has been cast to do the right things.

I had not heard that rule when I was raising my children, but if I'd been a learned person I would have made that rule. My children learned there were somethings you did not do. They were not to fight physically or verbally in my presence, they were to pick up their toys when finished playing with them, at meal time they were to say thank you, and eat what was put before them. (Mom isn't a short order cook, we have breakfast, lunch, and supper, pray for it and be thankful.)

Of course there were side notes made along the way. Words (besides obscenities) you did not use were "I'm bored". The person who used those words was immediately deemed to be mentally deficient and in need of some sort of stimulation i.e. cleaning, as in time to clean cupboards, clean the living room, clean...well, I didn't have very clean cupboards etc. my children were fast learners.

In the middle years when I purchased a girdle—I didn't need a girdle in the younger years I was so fit from lifting of children, the lifting of bales, and lifting of life I had muscles of steel—Anyway, at one point I found a girdle with light control. I told my daughter "Oh, no, not me. When I put something where I want it, I want it to stay where I put it." That should have been a good hint there was a control freak hiding within.

Now, our children were given their parameters of safety and they could operate within those guidelines without interference. Basically, don't push mom's buttons and you're fine. I wasn't a hovering, fretful mother always worried about the kids. I was always busy and trying to get things done.

1 Corinthians 14:

19) Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.

20) Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.