Mommy One-Liners
I don’t know about you, but I get to the point with my kids or rather my parenting where I am so sick of hearing myself. Like, “Yuck! I cannot believe how naggy I sound!” I get so frustrated with repeatedly explaining things over and over again, ad nauseam. Think about that phase. Dictionairy.com defines it as, “referring to something that has been done or repeated so often that it has become annoying or tiresome.” Naseua. It makes me sick. Heart sick. Soul sick. I am literally making myself nauseous with my own talking. Sad face. Imagine how my kids feel!
Enter the one-liners. At some point as the kids have grown out of toddler-hood and we deal with new opportunities to learn (euphemism for a problem), we are required to discuss why we don’t do something, what we should do differently and why that is important. Talk, talk, talk, talk. “But whyyyyyyy?” Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Follow this with reluctant or willing acceptance, but acceptance nonetheless. Dr. Scott Turansky in his book titled “Parenting is Heart Work” explains that this is behavior modification, but it fails to change the heart of the child.
When I took statistics at the Junior College, our professor, who looked more like a student with a backpack full of ego, made us do everything long hand first. STATISTICS. I don’t know if y’all realize how much work it is to average out large sample sizes and then… well, I will spare you the math lesson, but know that it was a ridiculous amount of work. Then finally, after we had struggled and become excessively frustrated and bored with the process, he would deliver the gift-wrapped, long awaited formula (hallelujah choir). The formula encapsulated the entire process of long handed work in one quaint chunk of variables and symbols. This tortuous process was not greatly enjoyed by his students, especially once we caught onto his methods. We began to sense the agonizing work of a new concept looming around the corner.
However.
However, once we received the formula, we had a deep understanding of how it worked and why we needed it. The formula itself carried with it a long-winded explanation that we did not need to rehash every single time we used it. We had gone through the process of developing the understanding, the need. There was comprehension and application built into it at this point.
That is how Mommy-one-liners work. As we enter into a new topic of childhood/mommyhood we have a lot of work to do. We discuss the problem, we talk about our sinful nature that we must fight against, we explore options that will aid in keeping the peace, we divulge frustrations and somewhere along the line we arrive at a linguistically concise synopsis of all of those thoughts; a one-liner, if you will. One little sentence or idea that encapsulates all that we unraveled in the process. So, when I bust out a one-liner my kids know what it means, they know how to apply it. The quaint phrase triggers a heart response. They know where I stand and where I won’t budge. This spares us both the lecture and the time that it takes away from life and fun.
This method, for us, has become so very effective. There is little to no argument, and I feel like we have all grown in wisdom more readily and quickly as it pertains to the situation at hand. We have been able to apply a formula of sorts to that type of problem rather than having to learn through the struggle method for every single variation of that problem. I detest the exasperated attempts to explain again; “I already told you,” or “we have already discussed this,” (picture frazzled mommy here). Instead, I am able to confidently deliver one familiar phrase that my children already understand. Should they need reminding, it is a rather short explanation with more or less ready acceptance because, in our world, in our little family, these truths and concepts have become fact, established and foundational, i.e. not up for debate.
Here are some of my go-to Mommy One-Liners:
“Try again.”
“We can do hard things.”
“Consider others as more important than yourself.”
“I take you to lots of play places, this is not one of them.”
“We can definitely do that soon, but today is not that day.”
“Little, by little, we soon gain much.”
…and there are so many more gems!
Keep your eyes peeled for my Mommy One-Liners book in the future detailing all of our favorite one-liners along with the thought and heart behind them.
