Back when my kids were little their behavior was a running commentary on my mothering. If they grabbed another child's toy, it was because I neglected to teach them to share. If one started wailing in the grocery store, it was because I forgot to give him or her their nap. 

 

I went along with it, mind you. When one of my kids came with me to a mom and toddler event he raked up all the toys in the room and laid down on them. Everyone looked at me askance. I absorbed the blame for this behavior like a magnet picking up pins on the floor. When any of the kids wiped out at the park and ended up with bloody knees, it was me who had not been careful. 

 

Yet thirty some years into the parenting marathon the umbilical cord has stretched out a bit. Not everything that my children do is a direct result of my actions. It is tempting to take credit for their successes, and shirk off their personal flaws, but maybe neither position serves us. 

 

The other day a board in the bathroom slipped off and scraped me. My first reaction was that John was culpable. He was not in the room when it happened, and yet I have the default thought that he is responsible for every naughty thing the house does. Every burned out lightbulb, each clogged sink, all broken appliances. Why is that? He certainly does his share of living here, but cannot possibly be responsible for all the breakage. 

 

I suppose one reason is that the few times that I have made an attempt to fix minor mishaps things have gone badly. If the medium is fabric I stand a good chance of figuring it out, but if we are talking about drywall I am a newbie. 

 

The next time I stumble upon a hole in the wall, or a leaky washing machine, I hope I can remember that there is one area that I am both accountable and empowered to fix it. My attitude.