If left to their own devices, boys will behave very badly. They don’t seem to know when to stop–as though the testosterone pulsing through their veins says ‘let’s go! never stop!’ some small measure of common sense might help mitigate the ‘going’ but boys don’t seem to have any of that on tap. Instead they have parents. I’m a parent. I’m a single parent–especially when my partner is not around–and they think I’m just another boy without the restrictor plates.
I don’t watch a lot of NASCAR. Basically none. Still, I was engaged by the idea of restrictor plates. These plates are affixed to a car to limit the intake of air and thus speed of the vehicle. It is meant to make things more competitive. In kids a restrictor plate is basically any set of boundaries that exist in a given space. My boys spent the entire day trying to push mine. They thought that because I wanted to hang out with them for a while it meant they could do as they pleased and expect me to cater to that.
Nope.
Just nope.
It was a hard but necessary day to see how they are with new eyes.