rolling up our sleeves and saying yes

On Sunday Liam wanted a job to do. I suggested he and Elliott wash the car. And they did, with gusto.

When they were nearly finished, Liam asked me for the keys.

“Why do you need the keys?” I asked.

“To open the roof,” he said matter of factly.

“No, honey,” I said. “Not while you’re washing the car.”

“But, mom,” he pleaded. “I can’t get the roof clean!”

I wasn’t following him and my impulse was to just shut him down. I’m the mother after all. Water is being sprayed with a hose. Soapy rags are being tossed about. The car interior will surely get wet. Not a good plan.

I held my breath and resisted the urge to blurt out my mantra, “No. Not today.”

But we were having a good day and I say that far too often.

“Explain to me what you want to do.”

So we made an agreement. Hose off, shoes off. I opened the sunroof and Liam rose up through the open space and proudly went to work scrubbing the roof.

I say no a lot. It's practically become a reflex. But lately I've been seeing it for what it often really is —the easy way out.

I don’t want to clean up your messes, so “no.” I don’t want to risk the possibility of injury or accident, so “no.” I don’t want you (or me) to look silly, so “no.” I don’t want to spend the time, so “no.” I don’t want to think about this anymore, so “no.”

I have written about the importance of saying yes a couple of times—how much good it does for a child’s creativity and how much joy and pride it can elicit in a child who has been given a privilege or a responsibility. The problem for me is that saying yes doesn’t get any easier.

I still don’t want to clean up the messes or look silly or spend the time. I’m prone to laziness in this department. Plus, saying no makes me feels like I’m in charge.

But on May 11, 2004, I was blessed with a son who is not easily controlled, and not because he’s defiant or rebellious, but because he’s smart and compelling and a very skilled negotiator. He’s a risk taker and an inventor and very much his own person. He doesn’t happily take no for an answer.

I could squash him, and let me tell you, I have and I do. But this weekend he turned eight and as he stood with a sopping rag in hand asking to take his job to the next level, I saw that it may be time to try yes.

In her excellent new parenting memoir MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy Art of Raising a Family, Jennifer Grant devotes a chapter to saying “yes.” Through story and anecdote she reinforces the importance of letting out the lead and allowing a child to make his own decisions, especially as he gets older. She ends the chapter with this quote from playwright Jean Anouilh in his drama Antigone, “To say yes, you have to roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows.”

Not the flippant, thoughtless, "you finally wore me down," "get out of my hair" kind of yes, but the kind that's risky and messy. The kind that requires surrender. The kind that opens the door to really living.

My son reminds me daily that we have many chances to roll up our sleeves and plunge both hands into life. All it requires is a yes.