7 Lists From the Past Put Parenting into Perspective

By Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

Fewer things make me happier than crossing an item off of a To Do list. In fact, I love the act of crossing things off so much that I often add previously unlisted completed chores and mundane tasks, like “brush teeth,” just so I can have a sense of accomplishment that a left to right swipe of my ink pen on the lined paper gives me.

Sometimes I amaze myself at the number of things I can get done in a morning. I do more before 11:00 am than most people do in a week, or so I like to think. I find an odd sense of pride in being busy and productive. I wish I could get the same sense of fulfillment from lounging around in my PJ’s, sipping coffee and reading a magazine. Wait, those things can be put on a list too!

I often wonder where and when my penchant for making lists arose. Was it born out of necessity as an adult I found myself with a never-ending stream of chores and work-related responsibilities? Was it a result of my "mommy brain" and its inability to remember what I ate for breakfast let alone my kids' names? Was it the result of my feeling compelled to track the daily schedules and responsibilities of three other people, not just mine?

I inadvertently answered my question, ending my supposing, when I dug through some memorabilia with the mission of finding a grade school picture. As I sifted through a progression of bad school pictures, old report cards and notes I passed (then inexplicably saved) to my schoolgirl friend that provided boxes for her to check-off indicating how mad she was at another girl (her choices included three boxes: 1. a smiley face, 2.  a frowny face, 3. a crying face), I happened upon an orange spiral note book that was nearly empty aside from a few frayed pages. Oh,and apparently my friend was crying face mad at the other girl, that's really mad!

The notebook's front and back covers were littered with mixed media warnings penned with black magic marker and rubber stamp sayings. The edict read “Don’t Remove Cover Because it’s Strictly Confidential.” The words remove and strictly confidential were authoritatively stamped delivering the strict warnings to those who might dare to peek. To make the point even more obvious, a smattering of strictly confidential stamps were splayed across the entirety of the orange shiny cardboard cover. Clearly, someone with high level clearance made this rule, not just anyone has rubber stamps with such demanding decrees.

Because I knew it was my 12-year-old self who had made the edict, I felt comfortable opening up the book to see what I'd believed to be so secretive. I'm not sure what I expected, but I was fascinate by what I discovered on the few remaining pages. My twelve-year-old self was a list maker too!

These lists revealed so much about who I was in my middle school years. What I learned about myself caused a mix of emotions to stir deep within. My words and my lists made me swell with tears, burst into laughter and ponder about the girl I was and the mom I became.

My youngest daughter is the same age I was when I wrote those lists. Up until that moment, I really felt like I was doing something wrong as a parent. I, like most mom's I know, am riddled with guilt. I second guess my every decision on this precarious path of parenthood. I am constantly finding my faults and rarely patting myself on the back for doing the best I can and maybe even doing it well.

I can't help but blame myself for the things I perceive to be my daughter's weaknesses or her needs. I question my role in her need to be better. Her struggles with reading and spelling I blame on my slacking on working with her more directly with homework. Her weak social skills I attributed to me not helping her reach out and make friends. Her obsession with television I thought could only be from my being too tired to make her entertain herself in more creative ways. Her tenuous relationship with her older sister must be the direct result of me not actively nurturing their relationship. Everything that is not perfect in her life must be because I'm not perfect.

All of those things worried me and caused me to beat myself up. If I was just a better mother she would be a Rhodes Scholar who was the most popular girl in the junior high and read Shakespeare in between her turns at the national spelling bee where she was defending her third straight title as world champion.

The discovery of my six lists made realize that I am my daughter or I was my daughter or my daughter is the me I used to be…. Whatever. We are one in the same twelve-year-old girl.

The good thing is that as troubled as I was at twelve, I grew-up to be a pretty okay person. The lists gave me permission to not be so hard on my mom-self. The uncovering of this historical gem gave me permission to admit that my daughter will get through this stage and evolve into a person who can spell and can make friends and can watch a lot of TV but still navigate real life experiences.

The 6 Lists

1. People I am Mad At: This listed family and friends and utilized a complex rating system to determine the degree of anger I felt toward them. The system was as follows: Check marks = sort of mad; double check marks = real mad or hate; and boxes with X marks = don’t like that much. The people who ranked the highest on my Mad At list were my sister and all the boys in 7th grade. Those damn boys. Mom and dad came in a close second.

2. Books I Like: Forever topped the list as it was Judy Blume’s porn for teens. I listed the “Pisacheo Persriostion” which I am pretty sure is supposed to be the “Pistachio Prescription.” My spelling was achroscus, I mean atrocious.

3. What I Need to Improve How I Look: Many of the items on this list were scratched off so I am assuming I met my high standards by accomplishing them at some point. Things I had yet to achieve included “no mustache, nice haircut and nice tan.” So, my mustache situation is mostly taken care of thanks a light zapping hair removal machine I discovered! I do have to pluck a few strays from time to time, but it’s all good. The nice haircut still eludes me as my hair is become thin, brittle and grey in my old age. The nice tan thing was never hard to come by with my olive skin so now I have leathery skin covered in sunspots…. If only I knew better....sigh. I scratched off some items  like "smaller eyes" and "no buty (beauty) marks" so I must assume I came to terms with my bug eyes and moles.

4. Things I like To Do: This list included "jumping off high things" and fighting with my sister. Currently, I am very afraid of heights and I no longer consider "jumping off of high things" as a fun way to pass the time. So, my feet are firmly planted on the earth. As of today, I am not a fan of fighting with my sister, but I won’t rule it out in the future. I do owe her a few “Indian Burns” (sorry, no PC term exists to describe this old torture technique from the school yards of long ago) and nails dug deep into her arm skin.

5. Things I Don’t Like To Do: “Be board” topped the list. Even then I could not lounge about doing nothing. Clearly, even practicing my spelling words would not help me while away the time. The boredom was too much to bear.. I really did not like being picked on by the 7^th grade boys which explains why they got so many double check marks on my "Mad At" list.

6. People I don’t Like That Much and Why was a revealing list about my relationships with my family. Apparently, a girl named Bridgette really drew my ire for unknown reasons. She stirred the harshest of my sentiments which I will not repeat here. Last I heard, she had a successful career in academia and I do not want my misplaced negativity to impact her future relationships and successes. I will just say, I’m sorry Bridgette. I knew not what I wrote. Of course, those 7^th grade boys did not fare well on this list.

7. T.V. Shows I Like: This extensive list includes nearly every single show aired on television that year. We had five stations including PBS and the local Cleveland station, channel 43. Channel 43 usually aired really bad black and white movies. Oh heck, everything was in black and white back then. Some of my favorites that somehow made the list include Benny Hill, Game Shows (all of them), and “all soaps on channel 3 and General Hospital from channel 5.” I was less of an aficionado and more of a boob tube glutton.

My lists have evolved over the years and usually revolve around things I must do rather than my likes and dislikes. I’m pretty sure if I actually documented my likes and dislikes I would run out of paper.

Finding these lists forced me to remember that I was not a perfect child. It made me face the fact that the things I characterize as needs in my daughter are just normal things that kids go through. We all have our strengths, but societal expectations force us to spend more time emphasizing the weaknesses of our kids rather than celebrating their innocence. We try to push our kids through the stages of development hoping that they will be stellar adults, but in this hastiness we deprive them of the luxury to make mistakes and be imperfect.

It is through the imperfect moments that we all grow and learn. Those moments enable us to be ourselves and understand what we want to improve upon. The individual must decide her own priorities otherwise she becomes inauthentic, and probably unhappy.

My twelve-year-old self was wise. She knew I would need a dose of reality 35 years in the future. So, she tucked those lists away for safe keeping. If I could, I would kiss her mustachioed lips in gratitude.