Sass at Age 5 (She Gets It From Me)

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YA, HAPPY BIRTH . . .”

“Mom, hush!”

*Insert shocked face*

With the new age of five comes lots and lots of sass. Now, my daughter, Audrey, has always been a sassy one. Anyone who knows my husband and I knows she clearly gets it from her father. (Insert major sarcasm here. It’s a joke.) But from the moment she woke up on her fifth birthday (in Disney, mind you), the sass got cranked up 1000%!

“Seriously, who IS this child?” asks my husband as we are eating dinner after Audrey loudly explained that she wants us to stop talking. I just stare at him and tell him that ever since she turned five and bought an Elsa dress from Disney, she’s been acting extra-extra moody, extra sassy, just plain old extra.

But honestly, is that the reason? The constant voice in the back of your head says, “You aren’t doing this right” or “I bet Janet does not have to deal with such a sassy child like this.” I often time wonder if part of the reason for the sass is our parenting. You know they always say choose your battle, but at what point does that get out of hand and you completely lose the discipline needed in raising a child?

For example, our mornings are a toss-up between being a princess and being the evil villain. Trying to get her to wake up with enough time to have her mini meltdowns so that we aren’t rushing out of the door, but to also not be an exhausting nightmare for her teachers is a balancing act I haven’t figure out yet. Our biggest morning struggle is what I’ve picked out for her to wear to school. It’s a 50/50 battle that I’ve gotten it right and those days where I haven’t . . . where it’s 40 degrees out and she wants to wear a short-sleeved dress and sandals . . . those are the days where I try to compromise, but end up losing the battle.

Then there is the question of “Is MY attitude rubbing off on her in a bad way?” She 100% gets her sassiness from me. I do my best to try and keep it under wraps; but, honestly, who is perfect?! There are times where she and I will be talking and she will repeat words or phrases that I know I say on a regular basis and I think, “WHOA, I really need to find a thesaurus, and rethink some of these words” or “Wow, do I really sounds like that?”

But does becoming a parent mean that you completely change your entire being?

Lastly, I wonder if the lack of siblings is a cause. I think back to my own childhood and how I grew up with two younger brothers, all four years apart, and how enriched my life was. The three of us always got along, I mean always. I can’t think of a time where we got mad at each other and didn’t talk to each other for minutes, let alone days. Whenever we get together or talk on the phone, it’s always about the past silliness we had as children and how we haven’t changed to this day. So when I look at Audrey, I get sad that she doesn’t have that (yet).

Parenting is hard. You can read all of the books, but no matter what, it will always be trial and error. Ultimately, I am hoping that at the age of five, we get all of her crazy teenage mess out of the way, so that that part of her life is smooth sailing. But knowing me and how I was at that age, five is ONLY the beginning. Someone send help!

Sydney Mcleod-Bryant Barnett
Born in Boston, but raised in Mount Pleasant, Sydney left South Carolina to go to Lenior-Rhyne College (now University) where she met her husband and graduated with a degree in Political Science. She and her husband moved back to Mount Pleasant in 2012 and are currently living in the family house (zoo) with Audrey who is going on 8 and Amelia who is going on 2, a dog and two cats. Sydney loves re-familiarizing herself with the city through the eyes of her children , traveling, learning Korean and listening to audiobooks.