Many vocations in this world, are compensated with something called Danger Pay.
The online dictionary defines danger pay as- ‘(Business / Industrial Relations & HR Terms) extra money paid to compensate for the risks involved in certain dangerous jobs.’
Well my question is this: Where the heck is my danger pay?
Here I am raising these two little darlings, every word spoken or action brought forth, cementing into their tiny psyches.
What happens if I screw up?
I will tell you what happens if I screw up; now we are faced with two more hellions this world does not need.
Two more dysfunctional individuals that will throw upheaval into our precariously teetering plane. Two more humans who don’t give a flying you-know-what about continuing on humanity in a positive way.
And this place we live, we love- certainly does not need two more creatures like that!
So, with every reprimand and every lesson I instill into my brood, I think of the greater good. The morals I want them to carry on into adult life.
The way in which they should hold themselves in this scary grown-up world.
How easy it would be, to say goodbye to manners. To carelessly throw away the lessons of good behaviour and polite performance.
How quite effortlessly I could tell my children to, “Do what you want because in the end, you won’t be my problem. After 18, you’re on your own.”
Sure, it may make for some discouraging teenage years.
But let’s get serious here, even the strictest of parents deal with the rebellion of adolescence.
So maybe it is a state of, “You’re darned if you do, you’re darned if you don’t.”
But that’s not reality is it?
In reality, any wise and compassionate parents have the mindset that their babes will grow to be the utmost of upstanding members of society.
And this is simply because we care deeply for our children and want the best for them.
Yet the trial is, withstanding that long and winding road to acquiring that ‘best’. And this is where my theory of danger pay comes in.
Of course we should get danger pay!
We as parents have the most dangerous job in the world.
We are the bodyguards of these wee ones, responsible for keeping them alive and well.
We are raising the furtherance of civilization!
And we were thrust into that position with little training and no experience. We do it simply from instinct, and for the most part, we do it exceptionally.
We shape these infants into mannered children, from there we encourage their growth and development despite our insecurities on how we do so.
We teach them right and wrong, while desperately trying to be the best role model we can be.
And we do it expecting nothing in return.
Perhaps this why no government official has approached me recently and offered a lovely cheque with a lot of zero’s scrolled across it and the title ‘Danger pay for Raising the Awesome and Outstanding Lars & Sophie’.
Because in the end, I know what my payment for this job will be.
It will be the satisfaction of seeing my children grow. It will be watching them do a kind deed for the less fortunate.
It will be enjoying their graduation and crying tears of joy with them when they land their dream job. It will be me watching them raise their own children and they truly understanding how much I did for them in their own childhood years.
So currently, my pay for this dangerous job I work so hard at, are those special moments when Sophie gives me an unexpected kiss and says, “You the best Mama.”
Or when Lars, tells me ‘I’m great’ for simply engaging in a game of hide and seek with him.
So yes, that big ol’ cheque would be a nice perk to the job- but the unconditional love from these two amazing kids of mine will always be enough compensation for me.
Lindsay Brown is a Sylvan Lake mother of two and freelance columnist