We recently offered to help our neighbor with some much-needed patch and paint work on a shared garden retaining wall because we're decent human beings, we're grateful for our neighbor's help and initiative, and it is shared space.
One of the values we talk about often with our son is shared responsibility.
Because we all benefit from the garden wall staying in good shape, we are all responsible for maintaining it.
Unfortunately, our neighbor chose this past weekend to take on the project. The neighbor and J power washed on Thursday. The sun baked everything dry on Friday, and slowly the warm weather started to turn up the heat on J's general level of patience.
By 96 degrees on Saturday afternoon, J was fit to be tied. Keeping our nearly four-year-old engaged and off a screen is not all that difficult when parks, museums, or basically anything else is open and/or our house is not boiling hot. There's no air conditioning. It's a whole thing with the electrical panel for the building and blah, blah, blah.
Our little guy is also in a Mama-only phase (it happens periodically) where he only wants to be where I am and do what I'm doing. So you know, that whole parental preference thing makes Daddy feel extra special and loved.
The time came to get painting; I donned my eminently attractive bright yellow painting shirt I've had since high school, and we got going. Very soon after, our son came outside and wanted to get involved.
We also usually value the learning experience more than the result.
That's easier done of course when you're not sweating like crazy and don't have a built-in hatred of things that splatter.
So our son started digging around the supply box, pulling out "Bub-sized rollers" as we call them. Paintbrushes were next, then rolls of tape, the key to open more cans of paint, and the mallet to close them back down tight.
"No, Bub. Come on. Let's just go back inside and leave Mama alone," J said.
"No, I want to help Mama! Please, Mama?" our son whined back. He started to ominously approach the overfilled tray of paint I had next to me.
The power struggle began.
"No, Bub. This is super messy, and you'll get paint all over your clothes. Please just come inside."
"NO! I'M A GOOD PAINTER. I WANT TO HELP MAMA!"
"Just let him help!" I said. Instead of honoring that this was a very uncomfortable situation for my partner, I shut him down.
Sometimes we make mistakes like I did in that moment. I should have supported him and reinforced another family value, that we are a team.
"Mama said I could help. See!" Bub shouted back. Things got messy at this point.
I asked our son to take off his shirt because we didn't want to get paint all over it. He decided to strip naked and run around the driveway. We quickly got some underwear, shorts, and sunblock on, but now instead of using my roller, he wanted to use a paintbrush.
The paintbrush lasted a few minutes, then he wanted a small roller. Then a different color roller. Then a foam brush. Then back to my roller. Every tool I had in the big plastic bin of supplies I keep in our garage had been pulled out, dunked in paint, used briefly, then discarded.
J was sputtering "No! Stop! Watch out for the wall!" Every move our son made was being tempered with some sort of warning or admonition. I couldn't stand the arguing anymore and told J to go back inside.
That was another mistake.
Our son shouted at him, "Go back inside, Daddy!" and J responded to me, "Fine! You get to scrub him down and clean up all this mess!"
I felt badly but decided to finish the project anyway. We finished the wall, I got my painting assistant a snack, and I washed every single brush bristle, foam sponge, roller handle, and small size black Croc splattered with white paint.
Because we also value respectful conflict resolution, later that night we had to have a family discussion about what happened.
I apologized for not doing a better job supporting J at a time when he was feeling really miserable. We value a team spirit in our home. Telling him to go back inside, especially in front of our son who was clearly trying to play us off each other in that moment, was not helpful.
We had to review together that we value giving our son the opportunity to go through all the steps of a new project or skill. So what if we had to wash everything? The inconvenience of that was not more important than letting our son feel like he was learning and helping. We value a continuous learning experience more than the result.
J apologized and admitted that he was frustrated and frazzled because of the heat and that of course he wanted our son to feel involved. They do many, many other projects together all the time involving power tools that (occasionally) make me nervous.
