Yesterday Raphaela and I spent three hours at the Pediatric Ophthalmology Unit at Hadassah Hospital, getting her vision reassessed. Raphaela was hoping that after the last year of being really good and wearing her glasses all the time, the doctor would tell us that at the very least her eyes had improved, and ideally, giving us a date when she would no longer need her glasses at all.
Instead, we got a lovely pep talk, "Stability is a Good Thing!" And yes, while I am grateful that her astigmatism has not gotten worse in the last year, both of us were admittedly a little disappointed.
I knew that her eyes would be sensitive after all the tests and the dreaded eye drops, so I had brought sunglasses for Raphaela to wear, on our walk back to the parking lot and to the car. Unfortunately I brought the wrong pair, they were mine actually, and they kept slipping off Raphaela's face.
I apologized and said, "Mommy made a mistake, I'm sorry."
A Israeli woman in her 40's, sitting near us during this exchange, immediately added her (unsolicited) opinion: "Oh no, a Mommy is not allowed to make mistakes. Parents are never wrong!""
I replied, mostly for myself and so Raphaela would hear, "That was exactly my point. People, especially parents, are still human beings, and we are not perfect. I think it is important for a child to know that even their mother or father can be wrong on occasion, and that it is always appropriate to acknowledge the other and apologize."
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