I hummed to my plants while tending my garden and Bro2 said
I was "witch compatible".
This was before I knew anything about Wiccans and I took offense. Aside from Glinda the Good Witch, witches
were ugly and evil. I looked up Wiccans
and decided I agreed with them about gardening. In fact, they're probably better at it because they pay attention
to moon phases though Dad paid attention to that too and I'm pretty sure he
wasn't a witch. He just studied the
Farmer's Almanac.
As I'm wont to do, a little research ended up in quite of it
before I decided I'm definitely not a witch, and I'm not going to be one. Live and let live, let's talk about the
healing properties of herbs. Tip: lemon
balm and fennel makes a great tea for a stuffed up head.
I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed or proud that I
could probably win a Harry Potter trivia contest. The books soothe me when life is stressful. Children having adventures in a magic castle
is a much better world than one with politically craziness and violence. I think we'd be better off if our schools
had herbology classes too. Maybe
without the biting plants.
The other day I thought about Professor McGonagall. She's stern and can be forbidding, but she's
also dependable and capable. She got the
rules bent for Harry to play quidditch in his first year, but docked him a
tremendous amount of points through his school years. We'd all be better off with a lot more McGonagalls. Rules, consequences, encouragement,
discipline, what more do you want from a teacher?
None of us wants to admit we want these qualities enforced
upon us, but we do. Life is easier when
we know what's expected of us. This is
true between student to teacher, child to parent, employee to employer, and
between friends and lovers. Set the
rules and stick to them. If a rule is
bent, have a good reason for it instead of just taking the easy path because
the short-term easy path becomes the harder road in the long run.
I was with a woman and her young boys in a store. The boys screamed bloody murder for toys
they wanted. The mom gave in. I said she'd just guaranteed her boys would
scream every time they were in a store.
It would be easier to just say no and stick to it.
This is, of course, much harder to practice in reality than
in theory, especially since adults have more wiles than screaming
toddlers. I could give you many
examples of times I failed at it miserably.
It's at the root of my failed relationships of different kinds. I tell someone here's my boundary. The person steps over the imaginary
line. I feel resentful. The person looks for more boundaries to step
over. I enforce my boundaries while
feeling more resentment until the inevitable explosion. I bet Professor McGonagall never has to deal
with these problems.
It's easier to blame trespassers of my boundaries than to
look at my own failed defenses. I can't
do anything about other people, but I can study better methods. Professor McGonagall is a good example even
if she's a witch in a children's book.
Happy Halloween everybody!
Wow Linda what an awesome illustration..you have captured her perfectly! I agree re rules and boundaries too...and my goodness children knew how to try to bend them. My own ones knew just how far they could push me ...only a few times did they push too far and hmmmm they tended not to do it again! It does kids no harm at all..in fact my daughter is the same with Daisy. Have a fab Halloween, sending spooky fun your way! Hugs xxx
ReplyDeleteThanks Jane! I see the happy Daisy pics and am pretty sure you did a spectacular job with your kids. I hope you have spooky fun this week too!
ReplyDeleteGreat illustration! And I bet you're good with plants too :)
ReplyDeleteYou're right about boundaries. I think we all want to have them and know where they are. Some parenting advice I got when my kids were little was to have "big pastures with high fences". I've tried, but probably came off quite witchy at times!
Your kids still play with you so you must've given them enough pastures and fences. I like that saying. I'll try to remember it so I can sound sage sometime.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about rules, but I have to admit that I have always been opposed to rules for their own sake. Nevertheless, I would never accept the behaviour you describe from my kids. But it has nothing to do with rules for me, but rather acceptable or not acceptable behaviour. By they way, you know how the determined whether someone was a witch in the middle ages, no? Not one to recommend, though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about rules for their own sake, and I've definitely tried to get around some rules just for the fun of it, but yeah, we need to share an idea of acceptable behaviors. I'm glad I'll never have to pass a middle ages witch test!
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