[email protected]

<< I get grumpy around ten
at night and don't want to be a short order cook if my son wants "second
dinner", dessert or "first breakfast". >>

If no one had ever said to you, "I'm not a short order cook," would you feel
differently?


The following tangent is not aimed at Betsy. It's just a reminder of the
power of phrases and a reminder for us to dissect language sometimes to stir
out those lumps.


Sometimes a phrase, especially if it was used on us as an insult or put-down,
tends to take on a life of its own, a reality without basis.

Same thing happens with "spoiled brat" and "You're letting your kids run all
over you," and "How will they learn?"

Phrases become rock-hard pain to be avoided sometimes.

Instead of thinking of it as whether you will or will not be a short-order
cook, how about trying to never think that question ever again. Just banish
it. Shove it down.

Instead, think of what the value of being satisfied is. Physically
satisfied. Nourished. Full. Not needy.

If your child feels needy or unsatisfied, an insult won't satisfy him.
My mom tried that. She failed dozens of times, but saw it as a failing in
ME, not in her.
She told me, when I said "I'm hungry," variants from "No you're not" to "You
have never been hungry a day in your life."

Probably she heard those things from her parents, and rather than really
think about what it might mean to me to have my mother hand me some food with
a smile and a hug, she decided she didn't HAVE to do that, and maybe she
could train me to stop asking.

Sandra