I Used To Lie When People Asked If My Two Kids Play Or Fight More
I’m sitting on the living room couch right now, and I can hear them down the hall. One minute it’s giggles so loud they make the walls hum, the next it’s that high-pitched “MOM HE TOOK MY THING” yell that makes my teeth ache. This is just how it goes over here, with my 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son. For the first two years after Jax was born, I lied every time someone asked the inevitable question: do they play or fight more? I’d smile and say “oh, they play most of the time, they’re best friends!” and then glance over my shoulder at Mia shoving Jax into the toy box behind me.
The lie started because I didn’t know what else to say. If you admit your kids fight more, people look at you like you’ve got a pair of wild animals running loose instead of humans, like you must be doing something wrong to let them bicker so much. Last spring at the neighborhood block party, another mom who only has one kid asked me that question, and before I could stop myself I said the usual “they play great together!” line. Ten seconds later, Mia came stomping over, face red, holding up a chewed half of her granola bar, and yelled “Jax bit my snack on purpose!” Jax followed right behind her, grinning with crumbs all over his shirt, and I just laughed and said some dumb generic line to brush it off, but I wanted to say out loud that actually, yeah, they fight more. They fight more than they play most weeks.
I actually counted last Tuesday, just for fun, to prove I wasn’t being dramatic. Between 8 a.m. when they got up and 12 p.m. when we sat down for lunch, that’s four whole hours. Let me list the fights: first, fight over who got the blue sippy cup (Mia claimed it even though she hasn’t used a sippy cup in three years, but Jax wanted it so suddenly it was the most coveted thing in the house). Second, fight over who got to sit on the right side of the couch for their morning cartoon. Third, fight over the T-Rex toy that went missing for three weeks – turns out Jax hid it in Mia’s sketchbook bin on purpose, just so he could “find” it and claim it first. Fourth, fight over who got to press the elevator button when we went down to get the mail. Four separate knock-down, drag-out fights in four hours. The total play time that didn’t involve yelling or shoving? Twenty-seven minutes, if we’re being generous.
But it’s not all yelling, obviously. I walked past Mia’s room last Saturday night and saw Jax curled up in her bed after a bad dream, holding her old stuffed rabbit that she swears she’s too old for now. Mia had her arm around him, and she was whispering that the monsters couldn’t get in because her sticker of a unicorn guarded the door. I stood there for a minute, my heart all soft, and thought see? They do love each other. Then the next morning, I came out of the shower and found them rolling on the kitchen floor fighting over the last pop tart. Jax bit Mia’s ankle. Mia poured a glass of milk on Jax’s head. So much for the soft moment.
I used to jump in and break up every single fight, immediately. I’d mediate, I’d enforce turns, I’d explain sharing until my throat hurt. I was convinced if I didn’t fix it right away, they’d grow up hating each other. Then my sister, who has two teens, told me to just stop checking every two minutes. So I tried it. Now I just lean against the kitchen doorway and wait for 60 seconds before I go in. Most of the time, they work it out themselves. Last week, they were screaming over that stupid T-Rex again, Mia was pulling the tail and Jax was biting the leg, and I was already walking over when Mia said “okay, if you let me be the zookeeper that feeds you, I won’t tell Mom you colored on her laptop.” Jax said “deal, but I get to chase the cat after.” And off they went, playing, like the fight never even happened. I learned that half the fights aren’t even about the thing they’re fighting about. They’re just bored, or they want attention, or they don’t know how to say they want to play together and don’t know how to start.
Right now, it’s been 25 minutes of quiet. That’s basically a miracle around here, so I just snuck down the hall to peek out the back door. They’re digging a huge hole in the marigold bed I planted last month. They’re burying all of Jax’s dinosaurs together, and they’re talking about how they’re going to dig them up next summer when they’re “giant.” No yelling, no shoving, just… playing. I stood there for a minute, holding the door handle, ready to yell at them for ruining my flowers. Then I just closed the door quietly and came back here.
Do they play or fight more? If I’m being honest, fighting’s got the lead, right now. Some days I leave the house with a headache from all the yelling, and I stare at the chunk missing out of my coffee table (from when they fought over the TV remote) and I wonder when it’ll get easier. People always say “just wait, they’ll be best friends when they’re teenagers” like that means I have to just grit my teeth and survive right now. I get it, but right now is where I’m living, you know? I don’t have the pretty answer people want. I don’t know if they’ll be best friends forever, I don’t have any tricks to make them fight less. I just know that some days, the good bits are messy, too. They’re buried in the flower bed, right in between all the yelling.
And now I really do have to go stop them from digging up my rose bush. So that’s that. (Word count: ~1120)
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