Mom Points

People who design points programmes must hate me: I have a free credit card, pay the balance every month, never pay interest, and use the points every four months or so for a free week's worth of groceries. I have a points card for the drugstore that I use solely to rack up extra points on the weekends they're offered and pick up free stuff when I have enough points, once or twice a year; and used this way (without ever getting any extras) it works out to about 30% of everything all the time. All of their careful marketing efforts have utterly failed to make me buy anything I wouldn't have bought anyway; I just get a lot of free stuff. (An added bonus is the well-stocked linen cabinet from which I rarely run out of anything, since the key is to stock up on necessities on the extra-points weekends.)

But it occured to me last week that I might be spending a bit too much time plotting my exploitation of points-for-purchase programmes when I realized that I now think of mothering acts, at least sometimes, as a way to earn points. Which I then spend.

For example:

I dropped Frances off directly at senior kindergarten just as class was about to begin (2 MP). I worked out and did my homework and picked her up again just as class was ending (2 MP, total of 4). We went home and ate tuna sandwiches on whole wheat bread with a side of cheddar cheese and locally grown grapes (3 MP, total 7). After watching a few short Clifford episodes on dvd (neutral) Frances asked to play outside, and out we went, me with my homework. Frances found a bucket of mud and settled in for an afternoon of very messy play. Hands in all the way up to the elbows. Hair got muddy, face got muddy, shirt got muddy, pants got muddy, shoes and socks got muddy. Occasionally she would head inside to bring out a plastic toy and cover it with mud. I'm not sure what she thought was going on, but as I sat there (reading about grammar through the lens of pro-choice and pro-life arguments--don't ask) I thought: exploration of nature! Scientific experimentation! Outdoor play! Then she started pouring buckets of water into an old rubbermaid and trying to sink some of her toys and leaves from nearby bushes, and I thought: physics! Displacement of matter! Mass, volume and weight! Cause and effect! I did not think: laundry! Mud all over the floor and I just mopped yesterday! Need to give her another bath tonight! I'm not sure but I think that has to be worth at least five or six Mom Points, so I was up to a total of 12, minimum.

Then supper was roast pork, mashed potatoes and apple slices, for a couple more.

So you know what I did, of course. I spent them.

A few days later when I was stressed and exhausted, she watched two extra hours of TV (cost of 3 MP) and I let her eat (healhty) snacks while she was watching it instead of having regular meal times (another 3 or so MP). That's ok, I still have about 10 Mom Points in the bank that I can spend today, since Mondays this term are going to be brutal. (Classes 8:30 to 4:30, which means daycare for Frances 7:30 to 5ish, which is a long day for a little tyke and doesn't leave us much time to play together--but it's only one day a week and I've been saving up my Mom Points!)

Mom Points can only be obtained from good mothering, and can only be spent to atone for acts of less-than-ideal-but-still-acceptable mothering. You don't get to earn Mom Points by doing the bare minimum, and you don't get to spend Mom Points on anything you know isn't really good enough (like yelling at the kids--those exchanges work out of an entirely separate and non-barter system of Acts, Apologies, Guilt Levels, Improvement Plans, Good Intentions and Breakthroughs). You get them when you have extra energy to be SuperFun Mom or SuperHealthy Mom or SuperPatient Mom. And you spend them when you are SuperTired Mom and need to lie down on the couch for a few hours, or skip a bath one night, or serve dinner out of a can.

This is nothing revolutionary. It's the same impulse that tells us to make up for a trip to the dentist's with a small new toy, or that it's ok to spend four hours watching tv today because last saturday we were at the Science Centre and didn't watch any, or that cake for breakfast is part of a balanced childhood and besides last week they had fruit and yogurt every day--except that my mind has decided to explain this to me as a points program. Earn and spend! Like currency. It's a little disturbing, frankly.

In the meantime, today is going to be a crappy day for Frances. Last week when I dropped her off early at daycare, she cried for the first time in a year. I tried to comfort her and failed, but was still late for class. I got to be a bad student and a bad mom.

But that's ok, because yesterday I took her to the museum and we looked at dinosaurs and she's been asking for that for months, and we went to a park, and out for dinner. The points calculator in my brain is already telling me I'll come out slightly ahead.

Posted by Andrea at September 15, 2008 7:28 AM under Single Momming

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