A Cheatable Moment

I know of NO parent that enjoys punishing their child. So to say that I hate doing it, I think, is valid. Tonight, I had to make a tough decision about punishing the Pie, and I hope I didn't overreact. 

After a nice evening of sharing dinner and watching TV, I mentioned to the Pie that I needed to go through her school binder. She casually stated that she had a paper I needed to sign. That's nothing new. But when I looked at the paper, my heart dropped as my eyes slowly read the words
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY. 

I was speechless. I stood at the kitchen counter, staring at the paper, while the Pie sat across from me, sobbing in earnest. I reacted with a shocked gasp, then began asking questions. What were you thinking? Why did you cheat? Where did you get this idea? Every question I posed was met with "I don't know" as a response, which simply made me angrier every time I heard it. The Pie knows that I do not accept "I don't know" as an answer for anything other than "Do you know..." inquiries.  When I reminded her of that rule, she responded with more sobbing. 

I took a moment to breathe and get my bearings and decided to attempt a different approach. 

"Please tell me how this happened," I said calmly. She stumbled over how to begin the story (as I sometimes do myself) but eventually explained that during the spelling test, she wasn't sure how to spell the word, so she sly slipped her study sheet out of her binder and copied the word.  Her desk neighbor saw the infraction and quickly told the teacher about it. The Pie was allowed to finish the test, but her paper was confiscated and remains ungraded. 

I know all the educators and child development experts would consider this a teachable moment, but I was too heartbroken to teach her anything but how upset I was. She knows that it's wrong to cheat, so I asked about her motivation. "Where did this idea come from?"

"Junie B. Jones," she said. "I'm reading the Cheater Pants book and Junie B. Jones cheated on a test in school because she didn't study." Some role model SHE is! When I asked her what happened to Junie in the book, she admitted she hadn't gotten that far yet. I decided that what would happen to the Pie would be vastly different that what happened to the little Jones brat. 

Earlier in the evening, I agreed to enroll her in gymnastics this month since she has been begging me for weeks. I was about to do the online registration when all this came to light, so THAT little project was immediately nixed. She is grounded from playing with friends for the rest of the week and each night she has to write sentences. One hundred times, I will not cheat in school. Finally, and probably the worst for her, she must apologize to her teacher for her actions.  

I know in my heart that the Pie is a good kid. I wonder if she just was unable at the time to discern that her action was wrong. She gave me no indication that she had gotten in trouble at school until I saw the paper. Was I not paying enough attention? Did I miss something? I still want to know WHY she felt compelled to cheat?

Am I putting too much pressure on her to get good grades? Am I pushing her too much? Maybe I think that school for her should be just as easy as it was for me. During our conversation, I stressed that it was much more important to me that she do HER best, not THE best. I would rather she make a lesser grade on her own than make a perfect grade by cheating. 

Perhaps this situation was a teachable moment, after all. I'm fairly certain that when faced with a similar choice in the future, I hope she looks back on this time and remembers how she felt, how I felt and what she lost as a result:  a tiny little bit of my trust. 

Daddy's Hands

Country music artist Holly Dunn released a song in 1986 titled Daddy's Hands. The lyrics tell a story of a girl who reminisces about how her father worked with his hands to provide for his family, used those hands to comfort her following a bad dream and occasionally used them to discipline when necessary. Our hands tell the story of the kind of life we lived. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the hands are the front door!

How people take care of their hands - whether they adorn them with jewelry, get regular manicures, bite their nails - says a great deal about the character of the person. Rough and calloused hands reveal a life of manual labor, while smooth and soft hands identify the owner as a person of higher class. Many people (myself included) use their hands to communicate. I doubt I'd be able to speak a word if my hands were tied behind my back! I tend to gesticulate wildly, especially when I am excited or very angry.

Women will always inspect a man's hands, and not because of the urban myth about size! It's because hands are so symbolic to us. Will they protect us from danger? Softly caress us? Express deep emotion to us? Provide for us? These are things that we question and only the hands hold those answers. I love looking at peoples' hands...especially those of men from an older generation.

These are my daddy's hands.

They are big. They are covered with age spots. The tip of one was nearly completely lopped off decades ago when Dad worked for the Santa Fe Railroad and ran to jump on a car. The door unexpectedly rolled back and caught the tip of his finger. I always rub the scar when I trim his fingernails. His hands have gotten softer over the years, since he hasn't been able to work in the garden or complete woodworking projects. I am jealous of his ability to grow such perfectly elongated and square nails. My grandmother, his mother, also had beautiful nails.

He once wore a plain silver band on his left ring finger. In the railroad industry, jewelry is considered a hazard, so it wasn't until he retired - when he had been married to my mom for 40 years - that he began to regularly wear the symbol of matrimony. His fingers are slightly webbed, a fact that convinced me when I was a kid that he was from outer space. I've always had this wild imagination, folks!

Lately, his hands are very cold. Dad suffers from diabetic neuropathy, which leaves his fingers numb and cold to the touch. He has even been known to wear gloves while sleeping to keep his hands warm and avoid the pain. I often warm his hands between my own and the last time I did, I was struck by the irony that just the same as he held my hands to help me learn to walk, I hold tightly to his hands to assist him as he walks.

When I was an infant, his big powerful hands enveloped me, making me feel safe. As a toddler and preschooler, his big hands scooped me up when I fell down, and they dried my tears. Adolescent years were tough, so he often smacked my bottom to keep me in line. During my teen years, those hands applauded all the efforts I put in to band, choir, dance, and writing. Now as an adult, when I look at every line, crease, vein and spot, I can vividly see his life played out for me like a movie on a screen. Growing up in the Depression era, his time in the armed service, his life of hard work, and so much else is reflected there.

When I sit next to his hospital bed, again I hold his hand ... and I'm not exactly certain who is comforting whom.