Suck it up!!! As the words left my mouth, I knew I would be sorry, probably sooner than later. My son, the drama prince, had taken a little spill when his scooter struck the edge of the sidewalk. He had a very small sidewalk scrape on his knee which lead to an overly dramatic display of emotions. The tears, the howls, he actually had the neighborhood dogs going at it thanks to the strange noises he was spewing from his mouth. This from a 5-year-old who thinks he’s old enough to drive. Seriously, the other day we were out to dinner with my in-laws and he let out a huge sigh and asked for the car keys. I said what for and he told me he was ready to leave, he would drive himself home.
But back to the sidewalk scrape. I sympathized for a few minutes, comforted him, but when he cried until he hyper-ventilated over a little scrape on his knee, I had to do something. He’ll be afraid of everything if I let him cry on and on about a little boo boo, right? Well, so, I told him to suck it up and get back on the scooter. I said that’s what the big kids do and he is desperate to be a big kid, so suck it up he did. Back on the scooter, no more tears and no more spills. I did my job, or so I thought. Cut to the next day when I pick him up from school and his has a pretty ugly scrape on his elbow. I asked him what happened and he said he fell off the swing. Feeling that mother guilt for not being there to comfort him during this latest removal of a layer of skin, I sat him down, hugged him and asked him if it hurt. Yes, he said, it hurt. I asked him if he cried and he said no. That left me wondering. Does he only cry when I’m around to comfort him? Is that okay? Maybe I should hang around outside the school all day just in case my kid falls again. Maybe I should revise my previous statements about crying and tell him it’s okay to express his feeling. Maybe...just then my son patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘it’s okay, mommy, it hurt, but I sucked.” “You what?” “I sucked. Just like you told me to do.” And he jumped down from the chair and ran off to his playroom. So, my advice to suck it up turned into “I sucked”. Great. I wonder if he told Miss Linda, the woman on yard duty, that his mom told him that he sucks or that he should suck or she sucks or how that conversation might have possible gone. I shudder to think. Fortunately, after much prying, my son told me he didn’t think that he said that he sucked to anyone, he just sucked and got back on the swing like I said he should. And it was fun again. Thanks mom.” Right. Thanks, mom. I suck. Sometime, sometime very soon, I will explain the difference between sucking it up and sucking, but not today. I’m too traumatized by my own advice.
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