How to Say I Can't

We've always told the children not to say "I can't" since saying the phrase out loud commonly makes it true. We encourage sayings like "I can but I will need your help,"  or "I can but I have not practiced enough yet," diplomatic ways of identifying challenges and how to overcome them.  Yet my words of wisdom are now coming back to bite me.  In the past six weeks we have been deluged with 15 inches of rain, canceled and rescheduled baseball games, swim practices and meets, and multiple demands from each child to get summer books, summer clothes, summer entertainment.  In the hurricane of requests, I had to periodically tell my children "I can't do that right now. I can do it in a week."  Or simply, "I can't."  My oldest child objected strongly to such statements, accusing me of weakness, procrastination and self-pity.

These accusations chip away at me like a workout session with a punching bag. You don't feel much at first but after repeated attacks the muscles quiver and you need to sit down.  I agree that I should not say "I can't" - it makes me a hypocrite and a bad example.  But what to say instead?  It's good for children to recognize that their parents have limits and that the kids cannot have everything they want right at the time they want it.  My mom, who was visiting, praised Rob and me for not giving in to every whim and encouraging delayed gratification, but I don't know that we do, really.  The children most often get what they request fairly soon after they express their desire.  They may pay for what they want themselves, but the ride to a store and the time it takes to shop come from us.

I guess that a parent's inability to be everywhere and do everything gives rise to the need for a driver's license at a child's 16th birthday.  Though some young adults may be too young to drive, the family's need combined with the young person's intense desire to be with friends and do what those friends are doing RIGHT NOW makes that little piece of plastic a necessity.  I don't know how to navigate the two and a half years before that piece of plastic comes home with Aden, but I'd better stop saying those two bad words.