Who wants their child to grow up to become a confident adult?  Well, duh.

So, since little Miss N. has been able to talk, I’ve offered her choices as a means of developing self-confidence.

“Do you want chocolate milk or plain?”

“Pink straw or blue?”

“Apple or banana?”

“Purple shirt or green one?”

Lately, though, my baby has figured out that there’s more to life than just purple or green shirts.  There are red, white, pink, stripey and butterfly garden tops, too.  There are dresses.  There are shorts.  There is running around the house naked with no clothes on, at all.

She’s figured out that Mama has been filtering the choices.

O.K.  No problem.  Just ask, “What color shirt would you like to wear today?”

“Hmmmmm.  Hmmmmm.  Lemmmeeeeeeseeee.  Hmmmm.  I think I will chooooooose… hmmm”

I am not a patient woman.  In fact, if there were a percentile chart of patience, where, say, the Virgin Mary were at 100%, I would fall in, like, the negative 1 millionth percentile.

“Baby.  Which top are you wearing today? Pink with butterflies, purple or white?”

See how I narrowed down the number of choices to accommodate her three year old brain?  I’m brilliant.

“Hmmm.  I liiiiiiike…I think I will haaaaaave …” O.K., not that brilliant, after all.

We’ve been through this scenario and its variations about a hundred times in the past six months.  I want her to pick the white one.  I just bought it for a completely unjustifiable amount at The Children’s Place.

“I think I want tooooo weeeeeeeear,” and if you think I’m making up the way she stretches out her syllables in this process, be assured that I am not making it up.  My child has mastered the art of torturing the chronically impatient.  She floats her hand over the white top.  “Hmmmmm….”

Please, I think, please, please pick the white one.

No, wait.  I can’t appear to want it too bad, right?  She’ll sense that.  Don’t pick the white top, I don’t care, pick what you like, white top or purple top, whatever, it’s your decision.

Only the purple top has a chocolate milk stain on the sleeve.  My mother, who we’re about to go visit, will think I’m not washing your clothes.  Then she’ll raise her eyebrows in that way she does when she thinks, there’s no way you are ever going to be good enough for me.

I know, I’ll suggest the pink butterfly top, so as to minimize any desperation in my voice.  Reverse psychology.  “Pink butterflies?”

Damn.  That sounded way to hopeful, there’s no way she’s going to pick that one.

“No.  No pink.”

“Hmm.  I think the pink one is nice.”  Appearing to be invested in the pink top actually raises the probability of her choosing the white one.  Not good at math?  Just trust me on this one.

“I said,” she says in a tone that’s disturbingly similar to the tone I get when trying to alpha dog someone, “no pink.”

It’s really down to the wire.  White top, or, dear God, please no, purple with the chocolate stain.   Why did I even offer that one?  I am so, so, so stupid.

“Hmmmm.” her hand daintily waves over the white.  She looks me dead in the eye.  Did I mention that my daughter has special psychic talents?  Well, she does.  That dead stare is an indication that she now knows exactly which top I want her to pick.

I can’t help myself, it just slips out, “Well, I kind of like the white one?”

“No. No white.”

I’m crestfallen.

“I think I will weeeeeear theeeeeee … theeee… purple one.  Yes, purple“  she looks at me, I assure you, as defiantly as is humanly possible for a three year old.  Which is a lot.

“But, the purple…”

And before I can get the sentence out, she starts screaming, “PURPLE ONE, I want the purple one!!!”

We go back and forth, I try to remain calm, I try to explain about the stain, how I shouldn’t have offered the purple one, and doesn’t she want to wear clothes without stains?  These explanations are met with an earsplitting “PURPLE ONE!!!!”

“Fine. Purple.”

She looks at me for a minute.  Triumphant and now perfectly composed.

I, on the other hand, take a deep dejected breath and put away the white top.  As I help her get dressed, I start to think of all the times I tried to choose the purple chocolate stained tops in life.

My mother never backed down.  Somehow, she always managed to have me walk out the door in the metaphorical white top, pressed and perfect, and a consummate vision of the person she thought I should be.  She had a way of making me understand that she knew best.

I’m never going to be able to do that.  I’m too wishy washy. I back down too fast.  I’m just not confident enough to compel my own daughter to make the “right” choices.

My heart sinks.  What if my daughter goes through life wearing chocolate stained purple shirts all of her life?  Won’t she look back and regret not listening to me, or worse, regret that I didn’t push her hard enough?

What if she never even touches all the white tops that my husband and I want her to wear?  What if they sit in the back of her closet, dusty and unacknowledged?

Hmm.  What if they do?

A chocolate stained purple shirt isn’t the worse thing that could happen to a person, I suppose.

Especially, if the choice to wear it is theirs.