I was sick. Worn out. Exhausted. It was the last day of school, and somehow I’d made it through a year of being a Road Mum. I dragged myself through those last few days of school, I can tell you.
I was supposed to be going shopping. TD was at school, and Rosie and I were going to get the groceries. Once I could face getting out of the car. I couldn’t face it. I had to have a rest first. I locked the car doors, laid the seat back, and went to sleep, Rosie right beside me, chattering to herself.
I awoke to a different child. While I was asleep, she found my scissors in the glove box. And cut her hair. A great big chunk off the front of it. A long strand off the side. I was horrified when I assessed the damage. Even a visit to the hairdresser wasn’t going to be able to fix that.
“Why did you cut your hair, Rosie?” I asked.
“Because I wanted a fringe like yours, Mum,” she replied.
HELP! I’M DUPLICATING ME!
It’s scary how accurately your children copy you. Copycat kids are born that way. Born to learn from the adults around them. I’m sure that at fourteen, Rosie won’t want the same kind of hairstyle as her Mum. That will probably be really uncool by then. But in the meantime, she’s actively learning from me. Everything from the way I dress, to how to prepare food, to how to clean the bathroom, to parenting skills. Talk about a huge responsibility!
What kind of a role model am I proving to be? Do I:
- Have a positive outlook on life?
- Know how to set good boundaries?
- Know how to enforce appropriate consequences?
- Show my kids good conflict resolution skills?
- Treat others the way I would like to be treated?
- Avoid hypocrisy – “do as I say, not as I do?
COPYCAT KIDS
I grew up in a family where emphasis was placed on speaking correctly. No dropped g’s. Minimal slang. No corruptions of common words. It was just the way we spoke. My parents were originally from Melbourne, where a greater percentage of people spoke that way (back then, at least). It was easy for them to speak that way too.
In country NSW, Michael grew up entirely differently. The country accent is loud and strong. The English language gets mauled on a regular basis. By everyone. It’s not that Michael doesn’t want to speak correctly – he recognizes the value of doing so – it’s just that old habits are hard to break. He grew up speaking that way. It’s who he is. Copycat kids learn to speak the way their parents do.
So here are my kids, caught between two worlds. Two ways of speaking. From an early age, with me all day as I cared for them, they learned to speak the way I do: copycat kids. But now, sometimes TD comes home from school trying out (a generally incorrect) new word or pronunciation. The latest was “meself” instead of “myself.” It’s a common way of saying it in our part of the world. But it’s incorrect, and I couldn’t let it go. So I spent several weeks correcting it every time I heard him say it. And he’s stopped doing it, for now at least. The funny thing is, both kids now pounce on Dad every time they hear him say it. “It’s MY self, Dad!” I have to laugh.
Why is it important? At the risk of sounding like a snob, people judge you by the way you speak. Making a good first impression is easier if you appear to be well spoken. (Now obviously, we’re not talking “well spoken, Prince Charles – style,” just correct grammar and pronunciation!). It might not matter a lot to my kids now, but one day it will. For job interviews. For meeting people who might have an influence on their lives. Even for choosing like – minded spouses and friends. It’s the sum of all the little things that add up to a favourable first impression, and speaking well is definitely one of those things.
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES
One day, I was doing the grocery shopping with Rosie. She was three at the time. Big brown eyes. Soft caramel coloured curls. Dainty and petite, a real girly girl who loved pink and pretty dresses. (Nothing has changed!). She made up her own songs – and still does – and one of the shopkeepers we saw regularly took to calling her “Little Songbird.”
This day, she was sitting in the shopping trolley happily singing to herself. I went down the first aisle in the supermarket, then turned the corner – and ran into a traffic jam. People and trolleys everywhere.
“Bloody hell!” sang Rosie. Loudly. I looked down in shock and consternation. What had she just said? She sang it again. I tried to shush her.
“BLOODY HELL!!” she sang with all her considerable volume. Every eye in that crowded aisle turned to look at the sweet, angelic little girl who was…swearing like a truckie. I wished I could melt into the floor like a snowman on a hot day.
When I got home, I indignantly confronted the role model for this humiliating behaviour – hoping at least for an acknowledgment of the indignity I’d suffered. He listened to my tale. He ignored my pointed remark that I didn’t teach her to swear. Then his lips began to twitch. His shoulders began to shake. He turned his face away so I wouldn’t see, but it was too late. A great bellow of mirth erupted, and then he lost it completely. No sympathy there!
I don’t know why it is that children will pick up a bad behaviour or habit after seeing it only once, yet it can take months or years to establish good habits and behaviour. Copycat kids seem to pick up the bad effortlessly while not even noticing the good! It’s one of life’s great mysteries. I just hope, if in future Rosie has another loud outburst of swearing in public, that her teacher is handy to take all the credit!