The Wisdom of Athena: On Standing in the Corner

My daughter Athena is 2, and this is common in our house:

Parent, exas­per­ated: “Athena, you can do what I tell you right now or go stand in the corner!”

Athena, con­tent­edly, almost sing-song: “Staand in tha cor-ner.”

…and off she goes — hap­pily. She stands in the corner for about 20 sec­onds, upright and nose to the wall, then announces, “I’m done!” and then pro­ceeds to do what she was asked to do, untouched by shame or the pun­ish­ment itself.

Sud­denly she’s Omar from The Wire; she’s been arrested enough times to not take it personal.

It says some­thing about the power of embracing your cir­cum­stances. Her brother hates the thought of being pun­ished, and every pun­ish­ment is an ordeal. I try to remember Athena when I think about my col­or­less cor­po­rate job — that my choices put me there, but it doesn’t have to be or feel like a pun­ish­ment. I can simply do it until I want to do some­thing else, and I can do it with a good atti­tude — even enjoy it.

Athena’s per­spec­tive might have some­thing to do with the fact that her severe aller­gies and eczema leave her always uncom­fort­able and scratching her fin­gers and ankles to shreds; but despite being con­trolled by her very skin at such a young age, she’s willful, funny, bossy, and talk­a­tive, so … I don’t know; she’s an enigma.

… and her latest discipline-thwarting tech­nique has me at a loss:

Me: “Athena, if you don’t get up and walk up the stairs to bed, I’m going to make you do it.” (This often works, as she would rather do every­thing herself.)

Athena, staying floppy on the landing and refusing to move: “Dad?”

“Yes, Athena?”

“Will you make me go up the stairs?”

*sigh* “O.K., Come on” (and she gets car­ried the rest of the way.)

Maybe we’re just get­ting owned by a 2 year old.