Meredith’s Musings | Consequences

article by MEREDITH MCKINNIE

I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve seen Husband cry. And I don’t mean the sad movies that wrestle the tears to the surface. I mean in the context of our daily lives. One such occasion happened about three years ago. I was in the madness of writing my dissertation, and most of the child-rearing fell to Husband, including the discipline. This is not our norm. Though Husband appears tough and authoritative, he loathes being the source of someone’s pain, even warranted, and thus, the discipline typically falls to me. I don’t resent this; I’m like my dad in this way. I appreciate boundaries, relish setting them, and am quick to identify one crossing such boundaries. Admittedly, authority gives me a bit of a high, so disciplining our girls comes naturally.

On this evening, I heard the elevated voices and rushed to the living room as Husband commanded our then five-year-old to go to bed. Barely 5PM, I glanced outside, stared at Husband, and then fell in line, insisting Big Sister get ready for bed. Little Sister shied in the corner, afraid of faring the same. Big Sister cried, protested, and then the look of fear set in when she realized Dad meant it and Mom wasn’t coming to her rescue. Teamwork is essential to parenting, so I’ve learned. As Husband pulled up her covers, tears streamed down her face, and her protests evolved into disbelief and defeat – perhaps the saddest expression I’ve ever witnessed. Big Sister placed my hand against her cheek, as if insisting she was too cute to suffer in this way (and she was). I calmly told her that what Dad said goes, and she had pushed too far, that we loved her and following through on consequences was an expression of that love. Her furrowed brow reflected her sense of injustice. She didn’t feel the infraction warranted the consequence, and frankly, I didn’t know if it did either.

The rest of the evening felt silent. Little Sister is not the loud one, and without her protege she melted into the couch, as if punishing us for punishing her sister. When we put Little Sister to bed two hours later, Big Sister was fast asleep, angelic as always mid-slumber. Later in bed, I asked Husband what she did. Whatever it was had been prefaced with an explicit directive not to, that Big Sister then defied. He reminded me that a few nights earlier I had insisted he follow through on his threats, that the girls would never respect a pushover, that an absence of correction didn’t translate to love and respect. I had already forgotten, but it sounds like me. I told him I was proud of him, and he nodded as I settled on his chest to read.

Moments later, I detected his sly sniff, the noise we make when we’re crying but we don’t want to be watched. I tilted my head and witnessed tears, not unlike Big Sister’s, escaping Husband’s eyes. He hated the follow-through, of being the bad guy, of hurting his little girl’s heart. I reminded him that she hurt herself, that parenting means making those hard choices for the kind of human we want her to be. “She’ll still love you in the morning,” I whispered. Without making eye contact, his eyes returned to the page.

We read for about an hour after the exchange, though my mind wandered. Why did Husband struggle with this? I knew he and his brothers were disciplined regularly; he has an amazing love and respect for his parents. The concept shouldn’t have felt foreign to him, but for some reason, it did. His passive nature is one of the many aspects I adore about Husband, the yin to my yang. I rage, and he just breathes, calming all of our storms. I needed him to step up for me, and he did, but he didn’t want to.

The next morning, Big Sister was first in our room, leaping onto the bed, the night before seemingly forgotten. She climbed in her daddy’s lap and lay her head on his chest. As I watched through the mirror, Husband held her, as he’s so often held me, offering tenderness and safety, a refuge we’ve come to rely on. When he caught my eye, I mouthed, “I’m proud of you.” While the punishment may have been difficult for Husband, the repair came naturally. I love that my girls are experiencing a soft masculinity, that Husband’s gentle nature transposes society’s insistence that men be hard and unyielding. In those moments when his passivity means more assertion on my part, I remember the counterpoint – that strength comes in various forms, as does love.