Do As I Say, Not As I Do.

Over Winter Break we decided to go as a family to see the movie “The Grinch.”  From one of my previous posts you already know that I don’t prefer to spend my time and money on going to see a movie in the theater.  But this movie looked cute and everyone else wanted to go so in the spirit of the holidays I sucked it up and we went.

Before heading out to the movies I decided to make the kids lunch to pack for the movie.  The movie was going right through their lunch time and I didn’t feel like spending more money on random movie theater food.  I cut up some fruit and made some quick quesadillas and called that a lunch.

We got to the theater with about 5 minutes to spare.  I had a cold bag full of the lunches I had packed for the kids.  When we got inside the theater the person receiving tickets asked what was in our bag.  I told her that we just packed some food for the kids and drinks. She asked what kind of food and I told her.  She said it was a no-go and we could bring the drinks and dry snacks but no food made from home. I was very annoyed!  

My husband and son went quickly back to the car to put the fruit and quesadillas away.  When my husband got back where I was standing with our daughter I asked him if he put the quesadillas in his jacket/pants pockets (because we had discussed this as plan B in the car).  He whispered to me that our son (he’s 7) saw that he had tried to sneak the quesadillas in his pockets and said “Dad! You can’t do that. You aren’t following the rules. She said no food!”  So my husband, trying to set a good example, put one quesadilla back in the car. Trying to appease me (because he knew I was annoyed) he did sneak one in his pocket without my son seeing. (Take that Regal!)

Honestly, I wanted to try to get my son to understand the reason that rule was in place (safety and liability reasons) and why the woman who worked at the theater had to follow the rules even if she didn’t think it was a big deal (she seemed to want to let it slide but the theater was so vacant she probably thought management would see her).  This is where it gets tricky! We teach our kids to follow rules. To follow our rules, the rules at school, and public establishments. But I am absolutely guilty of bending the rules and outright breaking them if I see fit. (Insert lawyer jokes here.) Sometimes I feel bad about it, sometimes I do not. If I think that the rule doesn’t make sense in a particular situation and that my reasoning is more logical, sometimes I just do it.  But to be called out by your kid for doing it...what then? Do we teach them that they should follow most rules but use their discretion to decide if the rule makes sense? Is that too much to ask of a child? Why should they follow rules if their parents don’t? I struggle with these questions.

We ended up splitting the smuggled quesadilla and the kids ate it in the dark in the theater with their huge bucket of popcorn.  My son didn’t question where the quesadilla came from, I suspect he forgot about it or was too distracted by the movie to care at that point.  In any case, I got out of this one, Phew! This happened a few weeks ago but it still kind of haunts me. I know this is just of many instances where something like this will come up. I want to set a good example for my kids.  But sometimes I break the rules!