On Discipline

It seems like for much of my childhood and post-childhood life I've been told by others, and eventually by myself, that discipline was just making yourself do something you didn't want to- clean your room, do the dishes, be nice, weed the garden, etc. Just suck it up and get 'er done. My mom was pretty life-changingly injured when I was 12 and she had 7 kids and a husband who travelled for work 5 days out of the week for a good portion of that time. And she had no choice, really. I watched her do so many things through so much pain, pain that would stop many other people. And I internalized that as "discipline," this thing you do through gritted-teeth and sheer will-power.

The last few years, really since having kids, I've had some experience with "making" myself do things I wouldn't otherwise, by my single-self, do. I remember clearly during my oldest child's first year of life, laying in bed and hearing her cry out for me and being so tired and knowing that there was no one or no thing in the whole world that could make me get out of bed, except that little girl. On one occasion, I remember turning over to my husband before attending one of her needs and saying, "I wouldn't even do this for you!"

So why did/do I do it? Did the process of growing and birthing a child somehow transform my character into someone that could suck it up when I have to? Or do I want to?

Lately, my five year old has been so consumed by her anti-desires: "But mom, I don't want to," is the logical and final end to her argument on not doing what I have asked. Almost as if not wanting to is the same as not being able to. I have started to tell her that I do things all the time that I "don't want to." And this has caused her to ask a lot of "like what" questions. Today, while finishing a cake, she said "Mom, what are you doing RIGHT NOW that you don't want to do?" with a kind of morbid curiosity.

And I really don't want to give her the example of a mother-martyr, but I also want her to learn the lesson that "wanting" to isn't the sole or primary motivating factor in what we choose to do.

But then, maybe it is. Because, in the end, don't we all do what we ultimately want to do anyway? Except, maybe there are times when the motivation isn't there because we are physically disabled...? It seems, though, it HAS to be more complex than just one or the other. Like there are all these competing wants that have different weights that tip the scales to one or the other...

I don't know, I thought when I began that I was on to something profound. But it's late. That's all I've got. Forgive me, I'm really trying to get back into this blogging thing.