A New Perspective on ABC Gum

As a mother of six girls, I'm quite familiar with how girls behave. Even though my girls are spread out between one and fifteen, in many ways raising girls is fairly routine. Raising boys, however, is most definitely not.

My only son, who turned four the beginning of October, has finally been given the privilege of chewing gum. It has been, in his mind, a very long journey that should have ended quite some time ago. In my mind, it is still a scary thought and one I'm not really ready for. In the end, my son is chewing gum.

As a result, we are, of course, once again going through the process of training a child the rules of chewing gum. If you have ever tried to instill into a child the rules of gum chewing, you know that one of the most important is keeping the gum in your mouth. In my experience, the best way to instill a respect for that rule is to take gum away when it comes out of a mouth. It is a technique that has worked quite well, until now.

After reluctantly giving my son a piece of sugar-free chewing gum, I noticed he was playing with it. He received a warning, then was instructed to put the gum in the garbage, which he did. Later, I noticed he was again chewing gum and playing with it. So, I told him to put it in the garbage, again, to which he replied, "But Mommy, I already put it in the garbage two times!"

Apparently, I needed to give my son further instructions. Not only was he supposed to put his gum in the garbage, but he needed to LEAVE IT THERE!! Obviously, I have a few lessons to learn about training boys. And, this experience has given a whole new perspective to the phrase "Already Been Chewed Gum!"