Complaint

There were times during spring break last week where I felt like all the kids were complaining. Constantly. It went much like this: He pushed me. She’s bothering me. He poked me! She’s hitting me! And over really stupid, lame stuff, like “she keeps saying a word I don’t like.” Or He’s singing that same song again and I hate it.” All six of them. All at the same time. Poke. Yell. Whine. Scream. Etc., etc., etc. (Trying to prove my point, The Baron just entered the room right now and said after being here for 1.5 seconds, “Sophie just tried to hit me and I didn’t even do anything to her!”)

Typical kid stuff, I know—there’s a reason they call this behavior ‘childish’—and so probably they just need to outgrow it, but what do I do in the mean time while I wait for them to grow up? Really the level of complaint had gotten so high I was just ready to put the kids out by the street with a sign that said, “Free Children. Warning: they whine”. I knew it’d be a safe experiment and that no one would take them with that kind of disclaimer.

My approach to the whining is to pretty much try to shut it down. Cut it off. Get them to quit. Because it seriously can feel like its making me go loopey. It would be impossible to solve all these problems and judge who is really at fault and it would take longer than getting a decent bill passed in congress. I throw up my hands and say, “Can’t we all just live in peace and harmony?” (and this at the top of my lungs or at least wishing I could lose it).

Mr. Handsome would join me in the evening and when we would finally get a moment to discuss our days together before Handsome insists on turning off the lights and going to sleep (he gets up at least an hour before his wife) I would tell him that the complaining was so out of control I was at a loss for how to handle it. (Was I complaining about the complaining? Could be, but that’s a little too introspective for now.) Handsome  was always asleep before I could come up with a good solution and I still had an infant to put to bed. I was left to puzzle this one out on my own. What to do with all these complaining whiners.

The answer came to me at church (a good place to get answers).

We were singing the sacrament hymn, “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” I was not really trying to mentally review my week. I am in too much of a sleep deprived brain fog to be that proactive at this phase. But it occurred to me as I sang the lyrics of the second verse. “He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.” This caught my attention. So part of Christ’s job description is to hear me complain. Hmm. Maybe that’s what a mom should be doing, too. Not that you want to encourage whining from your kids, but just hear them out.

And maybe that’s part of the kids job description, too. They are expected to—even supposed to on some levels—complain.

So I’ve been trying to listen to the kids complain more. Not necessarily solve their problems, but just listen to the whines. If God can listen to the whole planet whine, then I should be able to listen to my kids, right? After all, they're just doing their job. I'll let you know if its working.