Helplessly Devoted to You!

     I wish I had taken a picture of my just turned ten-year-old learning to cut his meat for the first time. Not only did he saw at it like a novice lumberjack, he risked slicing his palm open by holding the sharp side of the blade up. Of course, his dad and I corrected him and demonstrated how to do it properly, resulting in the blade turned right-side down but still hacking away at it.
     But I learned a lesson while teaching him the proper way to cut his meat. His dad and I have done too much for him. We have skated around teaching him basic life skills through avoidance, impatience, or  just downright laziness. In turn, he has exploited our reluctance to make him independent, enjoying letting us do everything for him. I mean it's basic kid nature to do as little as humanely possible, unless its a fun activity like gaming or playing outside with friends. If I didn't have to adult all the time, I'd love for someone to cut my meat, hang up my clothes, and pick up after me too.
     Now our first born son is very intelligent. Not only does he excel at school, he knows how to play up his helplessness. When asked to do a new task like putting his laundry in the washing machine and turning it on, he will first try the tantrum tactic. You know, the high-pitched whine making the dogs four blocks away howl in discomfort with an added stomp of the foot or pout. And if mom, somehow isn't moved by this pathetic display of small human misery, he will opt for tactic number two - complete ineptitude. In this second attempt, he will hit random buttons on the washing machine despite being told to pull the knob out. He will vainly reach for the laundry detergent and moan and groan as he shows me he's too short to reach. After I tell him to fetch a step stool, he will then pour too much detergent in the cup, and fall down in a melted heap when I try to correct his mistakes. He's mastered helplessness. And sometimes, I fail too and let him, angrily completing whatever crappy task he mucked up.
     Now in my defense, I am a product of my environment too. Mothers of the millennium have babied their DD's and DS's, mind-washed or peer-pressured into letting them out of chores so they can experience an organic, happy, carefree childhood free of responsibilty or some other b.s.. Or I do it for him because like most modern parents, I am in a rush and it's so much faster to tie the bleeding shoe lace or pick out a matching outfit for my seven-year-old than to take the time to teach him to do it for himself. I failed them and myself. And now I am cleaning up the mess and trying to teach them some independence.
     Now, I grit my teeth and show my oldest again how to push the corn onto his fork with his knife, instead of letting him pick up the remaining pieces with his fingers. Mind you, he tried pushing the corn from the fork to the knife and nearly stabbed himself in the lips with the pointy end. I stop and make him tie and then retie his shoes when he did it too loose the first time. He picks out his own clothes and sometimes they match, and sometimes I don't care. He empties the dishwasher, sometimes making me question why he thinks my measuring cups go in the cabinet with the popcorn buckets. But he's doing things on his own, even if makes mistakes.
     I read somewhere that a lot of kids don't do chores anymore because parents either fear of can't handle when they do a craptacular job. It's part of the learning curve. Yes, he half-asses his job of vacuuming the family room and has to do it again. Certainly, he puts his pillow cases on inside out sometimes. But he crawled before he walked too. And I'm certainly stumbling on my own wobbly toddler feet through parenthood. But we are learning together.