Primula Baggins wrote:Nel, I've never done that (though I've been sorely tempted). Why take the fun out of discovering something? And at least with my kids, if I want to encourage them to do something worthwhile that they're reluctant to do, letting them know I'm hovering and watching is precisely the wrong strategy. Better to pretend not to care, while arranging convenient "accidents."
I can assure you that I'm a pain in other ways. Moms always are.
I think I misrepresened the tone in which my mom and I would have (and still have) these conversations.
Time: College
Me: I decided to reread the Anne of Green Gables series this summer. It's still an incredible read, and I get so much more out of it now that I'm older.
Mom: AHA! And whose fault is it that you actually made it through the first book the first time you read it?
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/77tongue.gif)
Me: Well, I would say mine, since I was the one who chose to read it.
![Cool 8)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
Mom: So you made this "choice" all on your own?
Me: Well, ye - okay, fine! No I didn't.
Mom: Whose fault is it, then?
Me: It's the fault of the three chapter rule!
![Mad :x](./images/smilies/77angry.gif)
Mom: Remind me what that is again.
Me: It's an unfair, coercive, arbitrary rule that required me to read three chapters of any book,
even if I wasn't the one to pick it out, before giving up on it and returning it to the library.
Mom: Right, and who made that rule?
![Cool 8)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
Me: A tyrannical dictator.
Mom: I always said some day you'd thank me for it. That time would be...now.
Me: No way! I only followed the three chapter rule because of
the other rule. You know the one. And
that one wasn't your idea.
![Mad :x](./images/smilies/77angry.gif)
Mom: Right.
That one.
Me: Yes, the fiction/non-fiction rule, made up by a no-good, busybody (here, I used a word that my mom prefers I not use in front of her, and there was a little diversion in which we discussed how freedom of speech juxtaposes with parental rules imposed on minors. Or, put differently, in which she yelled at me and I mumbled something about the Constitution) librarian who thought that SHE had the right to regulate my reading schedule. When I was three! And I had to follow that nonsense rule for years.
Mom: It was perfectly reasonable to require you to read one non-fiction book for every fiction book, or you'd only have read fiction.
Me: Agree to disagree. Anyway, the only reason I followed the three-chapter rule with Anne of Green Gables is because I wanted to read
some fiction rather than two non-fiction books in a row (:roll:). So I figured that even if the first chapter looked horribly boring, it was better than another history book or something.
Mom: I'm still waiting for credit here....
Me: *triumphantly* So really, it's that evil, no-good, etc. librarian's fault that I read Anne of Green Gables, not yours. Credit denied!
Mom:
It's always been that sort of light-hearted bantering. I mentioned in the bar thread that I have the tendency to insist on discovering things for myself (that more experienced people have told me about), then act as though I used all the ingenuity in the world to figure them out solo. And no one knows it more than my mom. So she loves to remind me which discoveries weren't quite my own.
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/77tongue.gif)
Doesn't bother me - it's always kept me honest.