I think I know better than to make my stresses my children’s, I swear. I tell myself routinely to butt out of their potential social dilemmas or homework panics, since getting involved usually means planting distressing notions they may not even have been worrying about.
But somehow “The Lock Incident” still happened.
It was a routine buying of school supplies at Staples. The lists were long but manageable, without specific types of pens that couldn’t be found, or shortages of products forcing us to another store. The kids marked things off as they grabbed them and my heart wasn’t even racing as we neared the checkout.
And then…
“Mom, can we get this?” my soon-to-be-eighth-grader said as he held up some newfangled lock unlike the kind I was familiar with. The one on the list.
My heart started to race as I hearkened back to my own first locker days when I stood in the hallways in a panic, forgetting how to get my lock open, that I’d be late or have to show up bookless.
“No!” I said, eying my curious soon-to-be-sixth-grader nervously. Had he seen the lock? If so, he’d definitely want it, and then he wouldn’t be able to figure it out, I wouldn’t know how to help him, then he’d freak out, then he’d think he was stupid, then he’d feel bad about himself, then he’d fail out of school, then he’d blame it all on me.
“We just need the regular locks,” I said to the checkout girl, still trying to remain calm.
But she shook her head as she reached into a drawer and pulled out two of the new newfangled locks.
“I’m afraid this is all we have,” she said. “Sorry.”
“You’re afraid!?” I wanted to shout. “You’re sorry!?”
My mind began to race. I couldn’t help my children, not with the lock, not with anything, ever. Having kids had been a mistake. I wasn’t up to the task.
“We just have to get normal locks elsewhere,” I said loudly, fidgeting anxiously and uncomfortably. Did other people turn to stare? Could they hear the rising tension in my tone? I shook my head “No” at the patient checkout girl.
“It’s fine, it’ll be fine, we’ll get locks elsewhere.”
My elder level-headed son, sensing my impending tantrum, tried to reassure me.
“Mom, I think we can figure it out,” he said quietly and calmly.
The checkout girl was on to me, staring sympathetically as both boys now began to look over the locks hopefully.
“Cool, can we get it, Mom?”
Oh no! The sixth grade, so full of promise, ruined over a lock.
“No! They’re too hard! You won’t be able to do it! No!”
The checkout girl now had help, a fellow employee who professed he had the lock himself and it was “easy.” The line waiting for us to figure things and move on grew longer. People coughed and stared.
“You can try it,” the checkout girl offered sheepishly. “Here, open one.”
The kids tore at the packages and I began to hyperventilate. My loud protestations had even the poor employee who had the damn lock nervously forgetting how it worked, in which order to shift the little center button around to open it the first time. But, finally, he did it. He calmly showed the boys, all the while the checkout girl eyed my agitation nervously, promising she would refund the $20 the locks came to despite us having opened them if…
If what? If we’re too stupid?
I had momentarily lost the faith, had shown my fearful hand. But the battle was lost. Nervously the boys were trying their new locks.
“Mom … please.”
I waved my hand at the checkout girl not to refund them, trying to breathe.
“We’ll just buy the other ones if we have to.”
I grabbed the bags and we left, my embarrassed children working on their locks quietly behind me. In the car, within minutes, my new middle-schooler cheered from the back.
“I got it!” he said. “It is easy!”
My eldest shook his head. He was nice but scolding when he admonished me.
“Really, Mom, you acted like someone was dying. It’s a lock. It’s fine!”
I nodded, and apologized.
Point taken, chewed and digested, hopefully remembered the next time fear triggers me to make my kids afraid of trying something new, of moving forward without certainty.
Butting out is clearly my best shot at helping my kids succeed in their new endeavors.
