You're Not The Boss Of Me!

“Wow, this is pretty spicy!” I say after taking a nice heaping bite of the veggie appetizer, named something I can’t pronounce. I almost immediately regret saying it.

“It’s too spicy! I don’t want it!’ cries Noellie, Misty’s seven-year-old daughter, before she even tastes the appetizer she practically begged us to order. Why did I open my big mouth?

I take another bite. “Actually, Noellie, it’s really not very spicy at all. I just got a pepper last time.” We all ask her to at least try it. We try to convince her she’ll like it. But she’s not buying it. She slumps into the corner of the booth, hides her head in her arms and makes a high-pitched whining sound that even dogs wouldn’t respond to.

“Nooooo! It’s too spicy!” she insists. Noellie has been the queen of protest for a few weeks now. She refuses to eat what she ordered. She whines about the places her mother has to take her. She complains when someone wants to change the TV channel to something other than cartoons. Usually I just ignore her and let her mother deal with her pesky outbursts. But this time I’m more inclined to argue with the girl because we're at a super fancy restaurant and I’m paying for dinner as a gift to Alison and Misty.

At a Punjabi restaurant the other night, I watched Misty argue with her for minutes, to no avail, to about the same thing. “Just eat three bites of the rice,” Misty insisted as I watched on in silence. Noellie made the same high pitched, whiny fuss then too. She made each of the three tiny bites seem like excruciating torture.

“You know, maybe I’d have more sympathy for you if you didn’t do this at every meal nowadays. But you do so I just don’t care as much,” Misty tells her.

The other day, I told Alison that the fact that Noellie actually likes me was reassurance that I may do okay with having kids one day. Usually children feel awkward around me. We just don’t click. But that’s not the case with Noellie. When she sees me, she runs to give me a big hug.

“But just watching her complain and moan about food all the time makes me change my mind again,” I say, “I don’t think I could handle it.”

“I know!” Alison replies. “I’ve noticed Noellie’s been really protestant lately too. It’s really annoying. I wonder how long that phase lasts.”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think I could deal. I’d probably just let her eat whatever she wants. Or better yet, just not have kids.”

This makes me think about how annoying I was when I was a kid. And I’m pretty sure I was even worse than Noellie. I complained A LOT. I wouldn’t eat most vegetables. I didn’t taste a bite of food if it looked yucky. I was full when it was time to eat and hungry all the other times.I complained about family trips, about bedtimes. My sister and I always bickered and I'm pretty sure up to at least third grade I was the school taddle-tale. How did they put up with me?

When I complained, “Mom, I’m hungry!” and she responded with, “eat a piece of fruit !” Then I’d yell back, “I don’t want a piece of fruit!” I’m amazed any parent can put up with it. I’m amazed they can resist the urge to throttle their cute little obnoxious spawns.

I’m not exactly sure why every kid inevitably play the role of royal pain in the ass, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with feeling empowered. The kid want to see how far she can push her parents, and how much control she can win. Somehow, her resistance is like saying, “yeah, you’re my mom, but you’re not the boss of me!”

And, the worst part is, it's totally not JUST a kid thing – being difficult for the sake of being difficult, I mean. Mostly it's children and old people, but I'm sure we've all done it once or twice. And we all can name a couple people that have to have it their way, no matter how insignificant and stupid the request. It's bad with kids, but worse with adults.

It's the person who argues with their significant others about who used the last bit of toilet paper and didn’t put a new one on. Or the one who forces the other to turn his night stand light off even though they can sleep perfectly fine with the dim light on, and the other needs it to read. Maybe at work they want hazelnut coffee instead of regular, even though everyone else was agreed to brew a pot of regular. Maybe it's the commander-in-chief, who says he’s going to stay the course, even though most of the country is telling him to pull out…

It's normal to act this way every once in a while out of frustration or just plain boredom, but I can't understand how those who are guilty of doing things "just to be difficult" all the time can't get a clue that they're acting like seven-year-olds. These people definitely have some issues with needing to feel powerful.

It’s as much a power struggle kind of thing now as it was when we were seven. How can we make other people surrender? How can we take the reins?

I put a couple more heaps of the delicious slightly spicy appetizer on my plate and exclaim, “Mmmm, wow, this stuff is really good.”

Noellie eyes it curiously. She’s beginning to wonder if she’s missing out on something wonderful. She’s beginning to wonder what’s more important, to hold strong to her protest or give in and enjoy. What’s more satisfying? But she’s staying strong and holding out. “Here, Alison, take the last little bit” I say, and Alison scoops the rest onto her plate. Noellie’s eyes get wide, her mouth turns frowny. When our main courses arrive, she tastes everything and eats most of what’s put on her plate. I have a feeling Noellie's going to be one of the people who grows out of this argumentative phase.

But it gets me thinking, maybe we should all just learn to taste what’s on our plates before we choose to be difficult, before we make decisions, before we wish for something else. Maybe what some grown ups need is for someone to rub it in their faces just how enjoying the things they opted not to try actually are. Or someone to look them in the eye and say, "you know, maybe I'd have some sympathy for you if you weren't so completely annoying about getting your own way all the time." It might do us all some good.