Nobody Listens to the Mommy

Friday, March 21, 2008

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Nobody Listens to the Mommy

By J’AMY PACHECO

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

-G.K. Chesterton

We have a saying around my house. Well, actually, I’m the one who says it, but I do say it all around the house. It goes like this: “Nobody listens to the mommy.”

Usually, I say it (with great lament in my voice) because I’ve asked for or suggested something and my request has gone unanswered. Sometimes I say it because I’ve offered advice which has gone unheeded, usually with unfavorable results.

There is little mothers like more than giving advice to their offspring. Some people call it “nagging,” but I give lots of advice. Most of it has to do with ignoring what other kids do and say at school, because my daughter loves to get involved in schoolyard drama. Sometimes, it’s about socks, which I feel should be interesting and colorful and not blend quietly with whatever garment is worn above them.

I’m usually pretty good with advice, but as my ‘tween has gotten older, I find my advice to be less and less on target. For example, she recently decided to create a project to enter in her school’s art show.

I thought she’d draw a nice picture, but she decided to do a “nature picture.” This meant she wanted to hike through the great outdoors collecting plants and minerals, which she would glue into a marvelous outdoor scene on canvas.

Since we never seem to have the time for things like nature walks, she ended up going out into our front yard the night before her entry had to be turned in, and scrounging for interesting looking weeds. Fortunately, our cherry tree was in full bloom, so we whacked a couple little branches full of flowers off.

It was too late to go out for spray varnish, so I suggested she spray the fragile pink petals with hairspray. Good hairspray, I might add. She did, and proceeded to craft a masterful collage of cherry blossoms, a blown-apart dandelion, mysterious (and hopefully non-toxic) berries from our front yard shrubbery, and leaves, which she formed into a very green butterfly.

I thought the collage looked pretty good, but couldn’t help noticing the next morning that the leaves were noticeably more shriveled. I suggested she bring one of her drawings instead.

She declined, even after I suggested the leaves might fall off before the art show. She stuck to her guns and turned in the collage.

The art teacher stopped me a few days later to praise the collage. He mentioned that he and other teachers had been marveling at the then-paper like quality of the petals – and wondered if they were real.

When I mentioned this to my daughter, she gave me that “Told-ya-so” look that only a ‘tween daughter can master.

I saw it again this week. My daughter spent more than a month writing a lengthy story for her school’s “Young Author” competition.

She last won this competition in third grade, and wanted desperately to win in sixth, to – as she explained – “go out with a bang.” She decided to write a story set inside Disneyland after hours.

I tried to talk her out of it. She’s written and submitted a Disney-related story each of the past three years, and I thought that might be detrimental to her big-bang plan. Since she’s the reigning adolescent expert on the Holocaust, I suggested she write a fictional story that somehow used that knowledge. She declined, and cranked out a story that was more than three times longer than it had to be – and totally Disney.

A few days ago, she came home from school looking mighty sad, clutching the cardinal colored USC folder in which she’d submitted her story. In her most pathetic voice, she said, “They announced the Young Author winner today.”

I told her how sorry I was, and asked who had won. She turned her USC folder over to display the big “You’re a winner!” trophy sticker on the front.

I was absolutely delighted that my future Disney Imagineer had finally made her dream come true – by listening to her heart, and ignoring Mom’s advice.

Maybe someday I’ll be as famous as G.K. Chesterton, and columnists will open their weekly musings with my quotes. I doubt it, but if that ever happens and you see one – well, just be sure to ignore it.

Unless it’s about socks — I’m pretty sure I’m still right about that one.