Never Say Never…

Never Say Never… when our oldest children were toddlers some 25 years ago. Oh man, I am old! Anyway, I remember being absolutely appalled by children who would bite. How could their mother’s allow such behavior? I would NEVER tolerate such behavior! Well, that’s all it took Grandma Tueller had warned me “never say never” but I had to learn for myself. Fast forward a few years - very few - seeing that child number 5 was born when child number 1 was still 6 anyway that is another post & she did turn 7 a month after baby 5 was born. I digress… as you may have guessed child 5 was a BITER! I had a dear friend who worked in the Primary with me & some years after our children had moved on from nursery she confessed to me that her daughter was terrified to go into nursery if my son was there. Mother & daughter would peek in the nursery & if “sharp tooth” was there Katie got to go with mom that day.

Those of you who know my child number 5 he is the sweetest, kindest person even as a child he was tender hearted. I just don’t think he realized how mean biting was. I feel that I should include here that I knew he was a biter but I wasn’t always aware of those he bit & I certainly seemed at a loss to help him stop. I had a brother-in-law who bit one of the other nieces or nephews – not even his child – to try to teach the child that biting hurts. Luckily for that brother-in-law he didn’t try that on my son. Not a teaching method I agreed with.

Anyway I want to say that I learned a few things from this experience. First, of course is “never say never”. Call it karma, what goes around comes around or anything you want but when you say to yourself I will “never whatever” it is as if the universe takes that as a personal challenge & says “oh we will see”. Second is that sometimes being oblivious is bliss. I would have been mortified if I had known that my son was the nursery bully. Somehow it wasn’t quite as bad finding out after the fact. Probably last is to try not to criticize someone else’s parenting. I think most of us are trying our best most of the time. Parenting is not for the faint of heart, but as a mother whose 7 babies are all now adults it is certainly worth it!