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Commentary

By Liz Quirin

'Because I Said So'

We just finished celebrating Mother’s Day and will be celebrating Father’s Day next month. Two days of the year are set aside to thank and remember our parents, those who set our feet on the roads we now travel, in life and in faith.
I remember as a child, my poor, and now saintly mother, using the age old phrase: “Because I said so,” to me when she’d run out of reasonable explanations as to why I could not do something. I thought this was ridiculous reasoning and promised myself I would never utter those words. That lasted until my two children had arrived on this planet, and at the end of my wits and my rope, I heard those “ridiculous” words said. I looked around, but my mother wasn’t on the premises. Was it possible that I had said those previously objectionable words myself? Not only possible but undeniable. I had run out of answers to the “why” word, and it was the last fall-back position I could find. I grasped it and held tight until I could disengage from the “troops” and the battle of the moment.

My sister once said the best “pay back” a parent can have is to see an adult child struggle with his or her own children who, amazingly, is just like the parents. My mother never gloated nor openly smirked at my forays into “battle” as I tried to outwit my children when they made a move to step ahead of me. Now I’m waiting for a time in the coming years when I can see if the tradition is passed to the next generation.

I wonder, if, like my mother, I will be able to keep from gloating or smirking when my children face the prospect of answering those unending streams of “why” questions without saying “because I told you so.” Smirking is, after all, so much fun. I must admit, I may be disappointed if somehow they find the wit and wisdom to avoid that phrase. I’ll just have to wait and see.

One Sunday, not too long ago, my pastor called to me as I was walking out the door not to “lord it over” anyone that day. He was referring to a Scripture passage that had been read that weekend. I think of that passage, and that friendly advice, often as I remember my days of parenting small children. It’s so easy to “lord it over” those who are in our care or under our supervision whether children or the elderly or even in our places of work.
It is especially demoralizing and possibly degrading when a supervisor or someone in a position of authority behaves more like a parent than a colleague. Most of us have come across situations when we have seen unfair or unjust practices whether aimed at us or someone else.

While we can generally do nothing to right that wrong, we can and should make sure we do not “lord it over” our children, our elderly or anyone else because “God says so.”