Machiavelli for Moms by Suzanne Evans

Author:Suzanne Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

When Eric dropped me off it was three o’clock, which meant that I had two hours to finish my brief, which was due that day, and e-mail it to my boss. Stuck between a rock and hard place, I paid the babysitter, then hurried into the kitchen to make a quick afternoon snack. When I rushed into the family room, I saw Teddy and Trevor watching SpongeBob SquarePants, but Katie was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s Katie?” I asked sharply.

They shrugged.

I raced to the front door to make sure the safety gate was locked, which, thankfully, it was. The kid was still on the premises, thank god. But, as I stepped back into the dining room, which also serves as my office, I watched in horror from across the room as Katie dumped a full—absolutely full—bottle of water on my laptop.

“No!! Katie!” I screamed, as my stress level skyrocketed. My brief. My computer. My job.

I’d barely had time to process this catastrophe when Teddy came racing up behind me with a terrible look on her face. “Mom!” she screamed, her eyes flashing with anger and frustration. “Katie tore up my homework! And I can’t find Special Kitty!”

“She has to be here somewhere,” I assured Teddy, sending her back to her room to search. Then I led Katie into her bedroom and threw down the gauntlet.

“You cannot destroy things!” I shouted. “You cannot take other people’s belongings! And you cannot run out of your classroom! You have to listen and obey!”

Katie looked up at me, frightened and confused.

“You’re getting an hour time-out this time!” I continued on my tirade. “With no toys! And no TV! And no DVDs!”

“Mom, I still can’t find Special Kitty,” Teddy pleaded from the next room.

“We’ll find her,” I said as my anger quickly turned to shame.

“What if Katie took her to school and left her there?” she asked. “Or what if she threw her in the trash?”

And with that, we ran outside and onto our driveway, where three black trash cans stood ominously at the curb. I could see the trash truck driving away in the distance as Teddy raced to the bins and looked inside.

“They’re empty!” she sobbed. “She’s gone! Special Kitty is gone!”

We stood there in silence for a while. Then Teddy wiped her eyes, looked at me sadly, and asked, “Can I stay with Dad this weekend?”

All of a sudden, I stopped and looked at myself. I couldn’t provide Teddy with the peaceful, well-ordered home that she so desperately wanted and needed, and my poor, sweet, infuriating Katie had every right to both fear and hate me. And, at that moment, I hated myself.

My Machiavellian experiment—and my entire life as a mother—had taken a terrible turn for the worse. For whatever reason, Machiavelli’s maxim that “it is better to be feared than loved” wasn’t working with Katie—and, as a result, my inability to control or even redirect her increasingly destructive and dangerous behavior was tearing my whole family apart.

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