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On Being Forty (Cont'd.)

 I'm alarmed by some of the metaphors of parenting.


I sit with my child's pediatrician. I explain that the anti-diarrhea diet has caused constipation. In an effort to steer my child away from constipation, I'm worried I'm now encouraging diarrhea.

"Ah, yes," says the pediatrician. "That old Catch-22."

And I want to stop her there. "Catch-22" is military language. To be excused from war, you have to prove you're insane. But desiring a reason to opt out of combat is, in fact, the definition of sanity.

Is my child's eating behavior really a problem as intractable as the endless cycle of warfare?

A parent-friend complains that her son isn't doing homework, and I find myself invoking the bad cop/good cop routine. "One side of you gives straight talk about consequences, the harsh reality of high school....and the other side of you offers bribes, like TV time in exchange for an impressive grade...."

I wonder, though, if a child's academic performance is really an invitation for me to begin thinking about Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler.

In a tense exchange with my son's own school, my husband mentions the thought of "selecting the nuclear option." Again, this seems just slightly risible; we're really talking about diapers, and yet somehow Hiroshima has dipped its toe into our rhetorical pond....

I'm going to try to take some deep breaths today. Easy does it....
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