Because I Said So
The politics of strict parenting
I heard it a million times growing up, and it enraged me every single time. Whenever I’d ask my mother why I had to do something she’d reply, “Because I said so,” and that was supposed to be that. End of discussion.
This kind of parenting works with some kids. With others, it just doesn’t. I was one of those kids. So was my daughter. My mother always stuck to her guns and refused to explain why I could or couldn’t do certain things, which only infuriated me and didn’t teach me anything. It also didn’t help our relationship.
I didn’t do the same to my daughter because I knew it wouldn’t work, so when she’d ask for an explanation, I’d give it to her. Did she always like my answer? Of course not. Mostly, though, my husband and I didn’t force her to adhere to a rigid set of rules “because we said so.” Instead, we let her make her own choices and let her learn from the consequences.
I had an epiphany about ten years ago when I was rereading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series of books growing up on the prairie as a settler-colonizer. Laura mentions several times that if she and her sister Mary hadn’t listened to their parents, there were many instances in which the girls could’ve been killed. That’s where that tradition of “Because I said so,” comes from — a time when children frequently died…
