Yesterday Shanna asked me several times, “Does this make you feel proud of me?” Given that she is now at the stage where she is *asking* for that feedback I need a better way of explaining the concept to her.

Mondays are my cleaning day. Other than keeping up with the dishes and the rare load of extra laundry I try like fuck to not clean seven days a week. Then I get really pissy. Yesterday was a cleaning day. Given that the previous week was kind of rough (if I’m still cleaning at 7:30pm it’s a bad cleaning day) I was nervous about getting yesterday off to a good start.

In general I uhh, rely too much on, “If you do your work then you get your privileges. If I do your work, not so much.”

This week I didn’t say that at all. *pat self on back*

I just talked about what I was looking forward to doing when I finished my chores. I didn’t threaten them. That’s the right way to do it, darn it.

However, when the kids had an early burst of productivity I did kind of go a bit overboard on talking about how proud I am when they work hard and quickly. Which resulted in the dreaded, “What does pride mean?” I told her a kind of hand wavey one sentence long “It means feeling really happy but it’s more than that–I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

Me being me, I start the morning off with Google. What does “pride” mean? Wikipedia tells me:

“Pride is an inwardly directed emotion that carries two common meanings. With a negative connotation, pride refers to an inflated sense of one’s personal status or accomplishments, often used synonymously with hubris. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a satisfied sense of attachment toward one’s own or another’s choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, or a fulfilled feeling of belonging. Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a sense of self and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions (e.g., that pride is distinct from happiness and joy) through language-based interaction with others.^[1] Some social psychologists identify it as linked to a signal of high social status.^[2] In contrast pride could also be defined as a disagreement with the truth. One definition of pride in the first sense comes from St. Augustine: “the love of one’s own excellence”.^[3] In this sense, the opposite of pride is either humility or guilt; the latter in particular being a sense of one’s own failure in contrast to Augustine’s notion of excellence.

Pride is sometimes viewed as excessive or as a vice, sometimes as proper or as a virtue. While some philosophers such as Aristotle (andGeorge Bernard Shaw) consider pride a profound virtue, some world religions consider it a sin, such as is expressed in Proverbs 11:2 of the Old Testament. In Christianity, pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.”

You know what, I don’t think I will read that to my five year old. That may not be helpful.

Ok, so what is pride?

Pride is that feeling you get when you work really hard on a big fort and you want to show it off because you think it is so neat. Pride is that feeling you get when you swagger in to tell me, “Mommy I made ALL the lunch for EVERYONE all BY MYSELF.” (Sometimes I get a surprise pbj whether I want it or not–I am always effusive and grateful.)

Pride is the feeling you get when you think you did something right or well and you believe that it is a good thing to do. Apparently it’s not just about being happy. It’s satisfaction in a job well done. It’s feeling like it is a good thing that you can do something.

I feel a lot of pride in the fact that we grow so much of our food now. Five years ago that wasn’t true. Now it is because I worked really hard with my own two hands. The feeling I get when I think about that is called pride. When you think about what you do and you are all, “Wow! I did that! Go me!” That feeling is pride.

Often grown ups feel pride in their kids. It’s kind of an annoying thing because when a grown up gets pride from their kid that means they try to control their kid. Then the grown up tries to force the kid to do things so that the parent can have that feeling and that’s… not so good.

Like when I try to force you to wear the clothes I want you to wear in pictures because I want you to look a certain way. (Both kids flat refused the last time we had pictures done. *sigh*) I shouldn’t feel more or less pride in my kids based on their clothes, that’s pretty stupid–right? Should people feel “proud” because they look a certain way? Not so much. I don’t feel “proud” of my white skin or my curly hair. Whatever. It just is. I may like my hair–but it’s not pride. I don’t feel like I accomplished anything. It’s just kinda there.

(Side bar–yes, many adults in the world take pride in their looks. That is not a concept I am introducing to my five year old and I’m going to actively discourage it because she’s already obsessed with makeup.)

Pride is about what you do. It is about thinking you took the right action.

Why does mommy feel pride when you do your chores fast in the morning so we can move on and play all afternoon?

Partially because when you work fast it proves you can. Not everyone can work quickly and well and I think it is pretty fucking cool that my three year old and five year old have learned how to be responsible for their own stuff. That is something that not everyone can do as a grown up so I think my kids are AMAZING for doing it as young as they are. Just sayin’.

Partially I feel proud because when you work quickly in the morning we can all move on to doing something more fun. When you get your chores over with so that *I* can get my chores over with then I feel grateful that you care enough about me to want me to have an afternoon off. I feel pride that you care about me. I feel happy and satisfied and grateful and it all mixes up into pride.

I feel like it says good things about how you were taught when you care about other people and how your behavior impacts them. I feel like it doesn’t say such good things about how you were taught when you don’t care about how your behavior impacts other people.

But that’s one of those areas where grown ups start to be inappropriate. Should I base my pride on the actions of other people? Not so much. That’s not very healthy. Then I will start trying to control them. That’s all bad.

But I feel pride because I feel like I did a good thing when I tried to teach you to behave a certain way.

Being able to work quickly and move on will be useful for you for the rest of your life. Being able to buckle down and just get your work done is an important ability. I’m trying to teach you how to focus.

Pride is a funny thing. It’s good and it’s bad. It is good for my house that I take pride in it. I fix things. I make it better. I clean it up and ensure that we don’t get pests. I continue to put effort out towards making it a nice place to be because I want people to want to visit. I want people to think, “Gosh that Wonderland is fun. I want to go back.” Given that we have kids say nearly exactly that to me, I take pride in that. I have worked hard to create a reality and I take pride in it working out.

Is it good for my kids that I take pride in them? Only if I can do so without shaming them or trying to control them on the flip side. Only if I can take pride in the fact that they exist and are. Not if I try to take pride in what I can make them do. Then pride gets kind of broken.

Taking pride in the fact that I have taught my kids to *try* seems less hazardous than taking pride in their results. I need to not personalize their results. Their lives are not all about me. They are not just a reflection of me.

However, to a large degree people are a reflection of the parenting they received. It’s not nature or nurture but a combination of both that decides how we end up. My kids have gotten to spend their lives in an environment where it is ok for them to try things out.

That’s why my kids do so many annoying things. I let them. I let them find out the results. I tell them flat out “You only find out what will happen by trying things. Sometimes the result will be that an adult yells at you. That’s part of life. Maybe you’ll decide not to do that thing again. Maybe you’ll decide you don’t care much about being yelled at. The only way to find out is to try.”

And at the beginning, middle, and end of every day they are loved and cosseted and petted and told that both of their parents are very glad they are here on this earth existing. We want to see what they can go do.

I also talk to them a lot about how my approval needs to not be the most important thing to them. Maybe my approval comes second or third in their priority list, but they need to approve of their actions more than it matters what I think. I tell them, “At some point there is going to be something that you want enough to absolutely argue and not back down about. You will have to figure out how to get around me. Neither of us will be very happy for a bit. That’s part of the learning process too.”

I think that part of my problem is that I confuse pride and gratitude. Maybe I shouldn’t be feeling pride in their cleaning abilities so much as I should feel gratitude that they are helping me. How does that work? What is the difference really?

Okay I need a more concise definition for Shanna.

Pride is a good and a bad thing. If self pride pushes you to work harder that is probably a good thing. If pride in someone else causes you to try to force them to work harder then it is not such a good thing. This is not a definition that will help Shanna so far.

Pride is like being happy but it’s more. Pride is feeling like the job was well done. Sometimes you feel pride in yourself and sometimes you feel pride in other people who are close to you. It’s like approval.

Pride is where you think something is so cool. Pride is when you want to brag about something. Or when you think something is too wonderful to share. It can go either way. Pride is complicated.

Ok, that’ll do for now.