Three Little Words ... How I Despise Thee!

No, no, no ... not THOSE three little words. My children have always been free with their "I love you!"s (probably because we are the same way with them), and for that I am thankful. They are good at saying it when you least expect it, whether they are trying to get themselves out of trouble for something, or whether it's just because.

And before my silly brother puts his two cents in ... I realize that "how I despise thee" is four words. That's not what I'm talking about, either.

I suppose there's a lot of things that kids say that get on the nerves of their parents at one time or another. Most every parent waits anxiously for those first words to come out of their little one's mouth, and then spends the next several years at least occasionally wishing they'd never started talking to begin with, because it seems like they never stop. My oldest, for instance, has never told the "Reader's Digest" version of anything in his life. One of my pet peeves at the moment though, is those three little words that I hear day in and day out ... "But I want ..." (Running a close second is it's four-word sibling, "But I don't want ...")

Ok, I know they are just trying to voice their opinion on a given subject. Granted, they are entitled to have an opinion. I guess the thing that irks me is that it's nearly always the opposite of what they are told, and it's nearly every time they are told something. It's just a childish thing ... an extension of their theory that they are the center of the universe. We begin helping them, unconsciously, with this theory from the moment they arrive. All they need and/or want when they are brand new is food, clean diapers, sleep, and love, and we provide all these things in abundance (as we should). As they get older, they just transfer the idea that if they want it we will give it to them to everything around them. And most of the time we try, as long as it's not bad for them in one way or another.

But I want to rid my children of the "but I want"s. It's not always a want of THINGS that gets them, but just a want to be heard and have their way. I want to be able to teach them that I'm willing to hear them (within reason), but that they won't always get their way, and that it'll be ok even if they don't. I want them to learn about thinking less of self and more of others. I want them to understand that just because they aren't the center of the universe doesn't mean that they don't mean the world to the people who love them. I want them to spare my sanity, because I may lose it if I have to listen to "but I want" a whole lot longer.

And I'm sitting here laughing at myself, as I realize that my whole last paragraph was full of almost nothing but "I want."