Modeling Self-Control – My dad
Growing up we very rarely had sweets, sugar cereals (do we call it that now?) Little Debbie cakes, soda or potato chips in our home. If they did come home in the grocery bags it was proclaimed “once they are gone, they are gone.” Cookies and ice cream, which I believe to be my dad’s personal favorites were around on a more regular basis. BUT they were ice creams like cherry cordial or butter pecan that we would not be interested in, and cookies were limited to 3 a night.
Lately I’ve wondered about some times in my childhood. My mother will answer some of these questions, but my dad was coming in June for his first visit since C@VID. I sent him a bunch of questions via email so that he would have an idea of what was coming. Nothing major or too personal. I wanted to know if some of the ways I am were because of things that had happened, conditioning etc, in my childhood.
As a person I have an extraordinary amount of get it doneness, I stay on track (for the most part) with my fitness, I drink water, meditate, journal and stay on top of what is good for me. Once I start a project it gets done, it may not be perfect, but it is done. If I avoid something I do not want to do, it’s only a temporary thing, it gets done. I keep the grass mowed, the gardens pretty.
I do not have snacks, soda, chips, Nutty Bars or Pop Tarts (my personal favorite) in the house because I know that once I have a bite or just one cookie, it is on! I will eat the whole bag of chips, the entire frozen pizza (if it’s good) and all the Halloween candy once the bag is opened. Back to my childhood. I wondered if I lost all self-control around chips and cookies because I was raised without. Denied all the junk that other kids seemed to have sitting on top of their refrigerators. Was this my controlling father’s fault?
During his visit we took time to answer my questions. “How long did we live in the hotel when we moved to Iran?” “Why did I have paper baby dolls in the hotel instead of real ones” “What was I like as a kid? What did I get in trouble for?” Answers 6 weeks, hmmm I do not know our stuff was in a moving crate on our way to us, he does not remember or did not share much about the rest. My Dad is a self- admitted unobservant, non-emotionally affected human being. I love him and he admits his faults.
When it came to asking about the cookie and the soda, as a child he too had been denied the candy from the gumball machines in the grocery stores, the rides on the mechanical pony outside of Sears. What he shared around the cookies and chips and the lack of sugar in the house was his own form of self-control. Not a way to control us. No junk in the house was his own form of self-control, not about us!!! He too did not stop once he started! So, while this lack of access may cause me to binge sometimes, it also taught me how to exercise my own form of self-control.