The Value of Doherty

My mother told me not to use the glass bowl. I decided that I wasn’t going to listen to her. I was in the middle of making a chocolate chip cookie that looked like an elephant when I leaned across the table and knocked the bowl to the ground. Naturally I jumped and naturally a piece of glass cut me right below my ankle. What I learned from that experience wasn’t that I should listen to my mother more often (that would come much later on in my life, much later). What I learned was the value of honesty and instead of it coming from my mother, it came from my father. While I was lying on the hospital bed, the doctor explained that he would need to give me some shots in my foot to numb the area so he could stitch up my wound. I turned and asked my father if it would hurt and he said, “I’m not going to lie to you sweetheart, it’s going to hurt like hell”. 

My father has always been known to “tell it like it is”.

This is where my husband and I differ. I have a habit, sometimes a bad habit, of not filtering my thoughts before they come out of my mouth. I’m working on it and every so often, I hear myself say, “Would you want to be on the receiving end of this conversation” and like magic, I shut my mouth. Adam, however, has a habit, a really bad habit, of constantly filtering his thoughts before they come out of his mouth. I sometimes wonder if he’s envisioning me as a wounded bunny rabbit when he speaks. I do find it amusing when he tries the same tactic with Maisie, she’s strikes me as the “tell it like it is” kind of person to. And I often wonder if I make the same facial expressions when he talks to me.

I recently picked up Calvin from church, after he served for the 8^th grade graduation. Almost immediately I turned to him and said, “Good lord what is that smell”? I pulled his arm in to my nose, which was the first mistake, and quickly realized that (a) it was definitely coming from him and (b) he was starting puberty. I said, “Calvin you smell, we’re going to CVS to get you deodorant”. Instead of being insulted, I’m pretty sure he did a little dance in his seat before saying, “YES! I thought I started smelling a couple of days ago, Ryley told me I stunk”.  And here I thought I had at least another year before we had to discuss the “full” details of puberty. Calvin was under the impression that puberty only consisted of shaving cream and a deep voice. And then I realized, “You waited three days before you told me that you were starting to smell”?

For so long I assumed that Adam would take on the role of speaking to the boy’s about puberty. But now that it’s here, and looking back on my husband’s track record (ah-hem…comparing our good Lord to Santa Clause) I thought maybe it would be best if it came from me. I’ve always been very honest with Calvin, except for the whole Santa Clause thing (which I’m still waiting for the backlash on). So I thought it would be best to have the conversation in the car on the way to school where he couldn’t go anywhere. It ended with him jumping out of the car almost immediately upon arriving at school. At least it was a step in the right direction and obviously there are areas that I just can’t relate to so Adam will need to fill in the blanks.

I don’t think my father knows that I often think back on those memories, like my little hospital visit, when I need to sit and speak to Calvin about things. Calvin may not realize it now but someday maybe he’ll appreciate my honesty and he’ll want to do the same for his children. It wasn’t until recently that I realized I learned this important value from my father.

It’s one of the reasons why I try to stress to Adam that he should really work on not sparing my feelings and just lay it out there when he needs to tell me things like “work switched my schedule so I’m telling you now and not the day before” or “I got another speeding ticket”…however, he seems to think that I’ll be mad either way. While I agree with this theory, if I’m going to be mad either way then why not be honest about it, otherwise now I’m mad because you waited to tell me AND because you’re not being honest.

It is quite clear that we are not from the same family, we were not raised in the same home and we did not take from our homes the same life lessons. What I take from it isn’t that I’m right and he’s wrong (at least not always) but instead that it gives us something to build upon. It’s a part of marriage, we compromise and we sacrifice and we create our own home for our children. We are on this wonderful journey together as parents and it’s up to us to establish values that our children can take from and pass on to theirs.