I won an argument

Since Ella learned to talk, she has fought me on just about everything. Her determination and stubbornness and willingness to debate will serve her well in later life. No one, least of all me, is going to talk her into doing something she doesn’t want to.

This makes being her mom very difficult sometimes, because “Oh my gah, quit talking and just put your shoes on already!” Nothing is easy.

To say that Ella has had a rough time with the transition to the new house and new school would be an understatement. Last Tuesday was her first day, and I pretty much had to drag her out of bed and to the car. Wednesday was just as bad. That afternoon she announced that she wasn’t going back to school and I couldn’t make her. When I explained that the law required her to go to school, we had this little exchange.

E: Why can’t I go back to Brentwood?

H: Because we don’t live in the district anymore.

E: You could just drive me there every day.

H: That would be really bad for the environment.

E: . . .

H: Seriously, there are no buses or carpools there, and it would be really polluting for me to drive to Brentwood twice a day just for you.

E: . . .

I have no idea where the environmental argument came from. It just popped out. But it turns out to have been exactly the right thing to say. Environmentalism has been so ingrained in Ella and her generation that she absolutely nothing to come back with in response.

I think it’s the first time in years I’ve won an argument with her without having to resort to “Because I’m the mom and I say so!”