Yesterday it occurred to me that if we don’t want our kids to do a certain thing then maybe we just shouldn’t do it. Like for example, if I don’t’ want my kid to eat vanilla ice cream then I just won’t eat the flipping vanila ice cream. I won’t sneak around eating it or go out to lunch with my friends and eat it or stay up late and call my dealer to get some and go out in the backyard and eat it. I just won’t eat the damn stuff. Why? Because vanilla ice cream is not as important to me as my kid. If I’m really honest with myself, if I really look down deep in the part of myself where the truth lies, the place where I keep stuff like my real weight, not the one I put on my driver’s license, then I have to admit that if I only eat vanilla ice cream when “my kid isn’t around” she is going to know anyway. And then she is going to think its ok and she is going to go ahead and do it too. And then when she eats so much she gets sick on it and crashes her because she can’t see straight from the sugar high, it will really be partly my responsibility for not stepping up and doing what I could.
Author and Physician