What If?

I am a single mother of three, with a son who is two years older than his twin sisters. They are now 26 and almost 24 years old, respectively. They are fruitfully employed, are of good character and are reasonably attractive. (I can hear all of them screaming in protest here, “Reasonably? What the hell does that mean?” I say “reasonably” here just so as to hear them scream: “Reasonably? What the hell does that mean?”)

Of necessity, there were times when, as children, they were left home alone and to their own devices. Not abusively so - as unconventional as I may be in some aspects of my life, I was a good mother. However, I was never guilty of being a helicopter mom. There are some things children need to learn and experience without a safety net.

Though generally well behaved when left on their own, the children admittedly did have their moments of apparent unsupervised chaos. There is more than one patched and at least one extremely poorly patched repair in the drywall in my house due to one or more of the children acting up, apparently irrationally. I learned early on, as soon as they all began talking fluently, that it takes far too much energy for me to attempt to determine The Real Story with respect to some of their dalliances. However, sometimes I did have to step in to get to the bottom of what really happened, if only to satisfy my own piqued curiosity.

I recall returning home one particular evening when the kids were in 6th and 4th grades. It was early enough that they were still up, watching TV. The minute I hit the electronic force field of the family room, I could sense it: something bad had happened.

They were all sitting, overly calmly, on the couch in practiced, relaxed positions, watching TV. I noticed that Diana had been crying, and her eyes were swollen. Then I saw that her nose was red and swollen, too. She was squinting, staring at the TV, not making eye contact with me. Chelsea and Dan were also not making eye contact with me. I took the bait and asked, “So, what’s up with Diana’s nose?”

At a very young age, my children invented a game they called “What If?” A good, robust session of What If? is entertaining to watch (participation is not recommended). The children ask each other things like, “What if I grabbed your hand and held it down on the hot burner here?” and then perform a slow motion fake of the action, stopping, of course, an instant prior to completing the action. “What if I kicked you in the butt like this and you shot over the couch like this and your head cracked into the corner of the coffee table, like this?” “What if I picked you up by your collar and the back of your underwear, swung you back and forth, and threw you into the drywall, head first?” (See above for related information on drywall breaches.)

This particular evening, Dan confirmed my suspicions. “We were playing “What If?“ he admitted. “I asked Diana,” he explained, "'What if I put the palm of my hand on the back of your head and crammed your face into my knee like this?'” They had been sitting next to each other on the couch, and it was apparent that when Dan “What If-ed,” he, unfortunately, did not stop short enough, and Diana’s face had slammed squarely into his knee.

They had stopped the bleeding, shoved her nose back into place and were putting ice on it. Dan assured me that Diana did not need or want to go to the emergency room. Diana confirmed this with a stifled sob and a couple nods of her head, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she tried to stem the tears, her nose glowing like Rudolph’s.

It is in a mothering situation such as this that you don’t need to take any action whatsoever. They have already proven your point for you.

The kids still play What If? occasionally, usually during the holidays when we are forced to be in close quarters for an extended period of time. And it still makes me, and them, laugh, but I do notice that they have either grown up or their motor skills have improved, because they stop way short of completing the action.

I never considered putting an end to this game of theirs. I figured that if they were brave enough to play What If? at risk of such severe physical consequences, perhaps that courage will carry over into life’s other challenging decisions - into career, health, relationship, financial and personal matters - and they will never hesitate to play a savvy round of What If? with themselves, having learned from experience that weighing the consequence in advance of taking the action can save a great deal of heart and nose ache in the end.
Linda Harris