Know Your Answer
A few years ago, I got a call from my daughter who was away in college. She said, "Mom, I'm working on a Pinterest project and I need your help. Can you please write "Know your answer" and send me a picture of it so I can include it in my project? It's really important to me that it be in your handwriting."
I became a mom at a very young age.
I was blessed in that even though I had really no idea what I was doing, I made good guesses and my daughter was born with a guilty conscience. She was easy to make rules for. Some of them stuck and some are now family jokes.
Now, I think we can learn something from every relationship; sometimes things we want to repeat and sometimes things we know we'd like to avoid.
Growing up as a child, myself, I was taught to follow the rules because they were the rules. Because "I said so." What I found in my teen years was that breaking the rules gave me a rush. Quite surprisingly, breaking the rules did not immediately send me to hell! Needless to say, I broke a lot of rules.
During that same time, I had a friend. The way her parents talked to her, the way they encouraged her, gave her space to reason and make informed decisions, and negotiate with them was so very different from how things were in my house. While I didn't understand it at the time, I knew that I wanted more of that. That was something I wanted to learn, to build that into the fabric of my future, maybe even my kids! I wanted to help them learn how to make good decisions and feel empowered!
One day, my daughter returned from a camping trip with friends. While she was telling me about the time, she mentioned that the adults had encouraged her to have more soda, but she resisted saying, "Mom says I can't have more than two in a day." She was unsettled because the adults response to her was, "Well, your mom's not here so you can do whatever you want." That didn't make sense to her.
This was the first time I remember purposely exercising my hope to infuse her with self-confidence and awareness like I'd seen in my friend's family.
I replied, "You can always say "my mom says" if you need to get out of something or make an excuse of any kind. I'm always happy to be the reason if you're not comfortable saying no, but can we talk about why we have a two soda per day limit?" We talked then about how she feels when she's had more soda than that in a day. I reminded her that while she can always say it's because of mom, but she can also begin to understand the whys behind our rules and live them out because they're the right way for her.
As she grew into a teenager, the questions got harder. We moved from soda to boys to parties with alcohol.
Let me tell you something, teenagers don't think. They feel.
When a teenager is busy in the moment feeling everything, it can be really hard to make clear decisions. Just like we'd started when she was 9 years old, we kept the conversations about opportunities in her life open. We talked about what would happen if she went to the party, how many drinks do you think would be safe, how many boys would she be kissing. She really took this to heart in her adolescence and I'm so grateful of this.
She made decisions because she understood the implications of bad choices and had been practicing the skills of negotiation and planning ahead of time. She had learned to know her answer before arriving at the party, getting in a friend's car, or accepting an invitation to a date a boy. While she always knew that she could call me for a ride day or night or even blame me if she wanted to leave early, she had done the hard work of thinking before feelings in the moment got in the way of her reason.
Back to the Pinterest project. I really, well, honestly, I didn't take it very seriously. She'd called and reminded me of her request a couple of times and finally, after probably 6 weeks or so, I sat down and wrote out "know your answer" about 2 dozen times. I sent her pictures of all of my attempts.
Less than a week later, she knocked on my door. College had her living two hours away from my house. I was very surprised when I opened the door. She was shy and quiet as she said to me, "Mom? I lied to you and I feel just terrible. I don't want to have the lie in my heart anymore. It wasn't for a Pinterest project. I got a tattoo!" and she held out her wrist, proud and cautious with anticipation for my response.
I have to be honest here. Seeing my handwriting on her wrist was really surprising. I didn't even know she'd been considering a tattoo let alone one with my handwriting!! Truly, I was honored. Honored and surprised in equal parts; proud of her for making this phrase such an integral part of her life.
What has come of her tattoo is something of an evangelism of this "Know Your Answer" message. Because of the prominence of its location, she's often asked to explain it. She proudly tells the story about how her mom taught her to make a plan ahead of the party, to decide for herself what was good enough or too much. She's told me countless times about different responses from, "I have to tell my mom about this," and "I'm totally using that!" She's even had people come back to her after years to say, "I remember when you told me the story of your tattoo and I'm totally inspired and using it with my kids now!'
Inspired by my lesson.
A lesson from an unlikely parent that guessed well, was open and authentic with her kids, available and honest. A lesson that changed my daughter's life, all my kid's lives, and apparently the lives of people who hear the story, connect with its truth, and live differently as a result.
