Getting ready for National Jamboree, the kidss received ~30 patches each to prepare their different uniforms for travel. I could have been a mom who did all of the sewing myself but 1. I didn’t want to sew on so many patches and 2. There was no reason they couldn’t do it themselves.
Knowing that it would take time, I gave them the chore to sew on their patches 10 days before their departure. They were irritated, angry and then resigned. After the first patch, Daughter whined that it was crooked. I shrugged my shoulders. Then she said “well, it’s not like I care or anything.” I suggested that they space their work out, divide how many patches they had by how much time they had left. OK, 3 a day wasn’t THAT bad. And the steady march toward departure began.
It’s not like they didn’t know how to sew on patches, I had taught them years ago. But they had gotten lazy and I had given in when they would ask me to sew on a badge here or there over the years.
When they had occasional problems, they called for me and then respectfully ask how to solve it e.g. ummm, I didn’t leave enough thread to make a knot. It was nice to be able to help them with a concrete problem that I genuinely knew how to solve.
DH thought this process was brilliant. He was telling other parents to have their kids sew on patches too – why have the mom do it? They are scouts after all, they should be able to take care of themselves. Ahhh, but then I saw DH looking at his own pile of patches that needed sewing and I could see his conflict. He usually tosses the patches at me and asks me to sew them on. But if he did that, he would violate his own preaching. I waited to see what he would do. He didn’t ask me to sew them on but he didn’t sew them on himself. He did find a hat that needed sewing and he knew he couldn’t ask me to do it, so he actually sewed it himself.
One step toward independence.
