No, I can’t remember to remind you to bring your gym clothes to school. The fact that I just remembered about it a good two hours after you left for school is proof that I am not a reliable source of remindering for you anymore. That’s right: I just made up a word…
remindering (re-mind-er-ing) noun 1. The act of reminding someone, most likely offspring, to bring something, do something, get something or pick up something. verb 2. To make sure the kids don’t leave their iPods in their laundry and/or remember to bring the diorama of the Jefferson Memorial to school by Wednesday.
It’s not that I don’t love you. I do. But you see, you asked me to remind you to bring your gym clothes to school at the very moment that I was trying to pack up to take you to the soccer game I would be coaching yesterday. Here’s what I did:
- Text the team’s parents with a remindering for their kids to wear pink socks, a silly reward for good playing that I have decided to pass off as a nod to October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
- One mom texts back that her son won’t be playing because he is injured.
- Start rethinking the line-ups.
- A father e-mails me to pick up his son before the game as he’s stuck at another child’s game. I text him back and call his house (because he didn’t reply to the text) with an “Okay.”
- Make sure that I have the referee checks, game cards and players’ cards for the game. Without them, we’d have to forfeit the game.
- Someone texts me that I miss-texted him about the pink socks. He says he’s not who I thought he was. I can’t decide if it’s a father teasing me or if it’s true. Make a mental note to change the number later.
- Dig up my turf shoes and sunglasses.
- Pack up water, the game cards, etc. and ice packs for injuries.
- Hear you ask me to remind you to bring in your gym clothes to school.
- Tell you that my brain doesn’t have the room and give you a new remindering: You are in middle school now and therefore, you must find a way to remember your own gym clothes on Mondays.
- Notice that I set up a remindering on my phone that your library books are due on Tuesday.
- Promise myself that’s the last time I’ll do that.
- Put everything in the car and go pick up your teammate and head out to the game, only to realize half-way there that I forgot something.
I do hope that you remembered your gym clothes today. I’ll bet that you did, because frankly, you’re pretty organized. Plus, you don’t have nearly as many things to remember as I do, so there must be room in your head. I’m remindering myself to ask you that later.
Love,
Mom
OK, wow. This is how I feel exactly, but my kids are 9, 6, and 39 (yes, I KNOW he’s not actually a kid.) Do I have to wait for them to be middle schoolers to stop the remindering? Please say no.
At all costs, I try not to engage in reminderings. It’s a little bit of a diss, really..”You still have 30 minutes of piano to practice today” is sort of like saying, “I have to remind you of this because you aren’t smart enough to remember yourself.” (My boys are 13 and 15.)
There are natural consequences (mostly) to their not remembering. Didn’t wash the soccer uniform? Wear it dirty. Forgot to take it on game day? Warm the bench. Forgot to practice piano? You’ll be awakened at 6AM to practice double. All done with empathy, so they can be mad at themselves and not US.
I think they ask things like “Will you get me up at 6:00?” because they KNOW we’re over brain capacity and there’s a good chance we won’t remember and then they get to blame us. They learn quickly that they’d better take care of things that are truly important, without our help. (Thank God. Now I have room to remember…. heck, who was I supposed to call again?)