Wear The Dress or Go to Hell

Last Sunday morning I was getting the children ready to go to church. Inspirational worship music was playing in the background. Breakfast was served. Baths were taken. And church clothes were laid out. All was fine and well until five-year old Elizabeth insisted that she was going to wear a different dress than the one I had laid out for her. She wanted to wear a fancy dress, the one she wore to Joel and Laura's wedding. I told her no since she had worn that a couple of times in recent weeks.
"Let's wear this one today and you can wear the fancier dress next time."
"But I don't want to wear that one. I want to wear the white one."
"No, not today", I told her.
And then the meltdown occurred. Loudly, and in tears, Elizabeth declared: "Then, I don't want to go to church. I don't know why you make me go to church all the time. I don't want to go to church if I can't wear the white dress."
Eight-year old Jonathan decided he would help me out in arguing my case. And he made no effort to finesse his point. He barked out,
"Elizabeth! Do you want to grow up and be a pagan and go to hell?
(You got to love it. Jonathan tried to play the conversational chess game by declaring check mate in one move.)
That's when the second meltdown occurred. Seated at the kitchen table, Elizabeth buried her head in her hands and said, "Everyone is being so RUDE to me!"

At such moments as these, parents are faced with a choice. They can either sing a Rolling Stones song to their child ("You can't always get what you want") or the less offensive, more soothing "mama said there'd by days like this". I chose the latter as my lullaby. She chose the dress. And we left for church.

Posted on September 18, 2005 at 07:05 AM