Cucumber or Pickle? The choice is yours

Posted on by Tamara Dickerson, M.D.

Are you a cucumber or are you a pickle?

Yup, you read it right!  What’s the difference between a cucumber and a pickle?  It’s environment!  Just in case you did not know, pickles are cucumbers first.  Pickling is a process that requires denaturation, otherwise known as a breaking down process of its natural chemical makeup.  Once a cucumber has become a pickle, there is no turning back!  The great news today is that in our parenting, we have the opportunity to go from pickle to cucumber again and again and again.  The quest in our parenting journey is getting back to that cucumber state faster and spending as little time as possible as a pickle!

In our parenting adventure, I believe we all begin as cucumbers.  Nice and crunchy, full of natural flavor and anticipation of an amazing experience.  Along the way, we seem to succumb to choices and influences that either encourage us to maintain our natural crunchiness or we get pickled!

Not quite following the analogy? Imagine you are waking in the morning.  You are up before everyone else.  It is totally quiet!  You stretch and breathe and maybe even smile to yourself – this is going to be a great day!  Then it hits you…you slept through the alarm!  Your oldest child has 30 minutes before the bus comes – and she is NOT a morning person, sometimes you honestly wonder to yourself – monster or miracle?  It usually takes her 30 minutes to wake up!  Your middle child always wakes up on level 10, creating chaos and leaving destruction in his wake.  Your youngest two haven’t committed to a routine yet- so it’s a surprise every morning.

Here it is your moment of decision…cucumber or pickle. Which will you be?  Truth be told, most of us become pickles in this moment.  I challenge us to consider a few things in that short moment before we become “pickled:

  1. If I get pickled, it impacts everyone – I send the pickled kids to school to create an environment to make other pickles out of the bus driver, other children and their teachers! I could be responsible for a whole lot of pickling…
  2. Stay in my cucumber zone – I consider my reaction, stay calm and began the day remembering yes, this is a tough moment, but it doesn’t have to ruin my day — and I don’t have to ruin my children’s day. This is not life or death.  So let’s take a deep breath, recognize that this is a hard moment and deal with it, knowing the moment will pass.

The consistent task of a parent is to stay in the moment and realize the life lesson that you are living out before your children.  Truly, it is all about choices. Do I make the selfish choice and do what I feel like doing or do I consider how my choice may affect others around me, especially my children? No one ever promised it would be easy.  If they did, you were sold a beautiful opportunity of a time share property… on the moon!

My fellow parent(s) – you are doing an amazing job!  Keep it up…your kids are worth it and your relationship with them can only become more amazing! 

Till next time…Dr. D

Your personal parent trainer

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Published by Tamara Dickerson, M.D.

Welcome to my answer to a parenting housecall! I am a practicing pediatrician who has been asked on many occasions to come home with my families. I have been offered wallets (full of credit cards and checks-hehehe!) and even the invitation to, “please take my child for weekend”! Here is my 21st century version of a house call. This will be as close as I will get to most of you in going home with you. My dream is to provide you some practical and humorous tips to make your parenting journey appear more successful and definitely more enjoyable. Wisdom Moments is a resource that offers help in those moments when you feel like you are not leading the battle, let alone winning it. In those moments when you just need a little creativity but keep coming up with a blank. When those big ole’ eyes of your child are looking up at you , challenging – are you ready for this?! Instead of gulping and waving the white flag…drop by here for a little bit of parenting encouragement/reinforcement. Despite the humor I use to share my message, I want to reassure you have heard each request and take them very seriously. What I bring to the table is not only my credentials as an accredited pediatrician, but just as validating is that I, too, am a fellow parent in the trenches with you! So what I have to offer you, I pray, is creative, effective and grounded in truth and reality. This blog will become my way, for now, to be more available to you and to share my parenting pearls. So…a toast to christen this maiden voyage “May we laugh and cry together…may we agree and disagree…may we always encourage each other that our children are worth climbing every mountain, scouring every valley, crossing any desert – to find a parenting pearl that will positively change a course of action for us and them”.

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