If I have to believe my children, they are never naughty on purpose. “It was an accident!” Isabella yells when her brother is sitting on the floor, crying. “Sorry, an accident,” Mendel claims when there’s toothpaste smeared all over the bathroom mirror. He ‘accidentally’ drops his cereal on the floor; she ‘accidentally’ forgets to do her homework. They think they have discovered the perfect excuse, which they keep using, in spite of the fact that I’m not buying it.
There is a large grey area between doing something on purpose, and having a genuine accident. This area is called ‘not paying attention’. Isabella doesn’t like to pay attention; paying attention is for losers who have nothing better to do. Besides, it’s not as if the adults around her are all that interesting. I could have a detailed discussion of my sex life in front of her, and she wouldn’t learn a thing (I think; I haven’t actually tried this out).
Mendel, on the other hand, pays too much attention: there’s not a whispered conversation he doesn’t file away, not a Television program he forgets. Say something inappropriate anywhere in the house while he’s home, and he’ll repeat it back to you weeks later. He doesn’t even have to be in the same room. Having to constantly remind one child to listen up, and another child to butt out is inconvenient; I also find it slightly unfair. And, I can imagine how irritating it must be to have your little brother remember things better. After all, Isabella doesn’t space off because she wants to, it’s just how her brain is wired.
Because of this, she tends to believe Mendel when he claims he ‘accidentally’ borrowed her favorite Barbie and misplaced it. But when she ‘accidentally’ smacks him on the head, he doesn’t cooperate by falling for her excuses in return. It is time we explain to these kids what the word ‘accident’ really means.
“It is an accident when something unexpected happens that nobody wants to happen,” I tell them. “I there anybody who wanted Mendel to get hit on the head?”
They stare at me.
“Okay; is there anybody who wanted to play with Mermaid Barbie? Mendel, how about you?”
“No,” he says.
“So when you took Barbie out of the doll house, you didn’t actually want to play with her?”
“No. It was an accident.”
Damn it; they’re not cooperating. Now what? Then it strikes me: Mendel already knows exactly what I am talking about; Isabella is thinking about something else entirely. One language lesson about the meaning of words isn’t going to change my children’s behavior, and besides, would I really want it to? They are who they are: nothing is ever going to make Mendel into a space cadet, nothing will stop Isabella from being a dreamer whose brain leaves the room from time to time. Maybe I’ll just have to figure out how to accidentally live with that.
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