Bribes

This morning, I saw a facebook post from a friend who is a stay-at-home super mom. She has a huge, organic garden and chickens and organizes community wide children's' clothing swaps and is fantastically creative. Her young daughter (I think about 1st grade?) was mid-temper tantrum and using all the classic kid manipulations . . . "you don't want me to be happy" and "you don't understand me" and "I am going to starve" . . . all because she didn't want Cheerios for breakfast.

It reminded me of one of the Old Woman's tactics when I was a young monkey. When she had some task she wanted me to perform and anticipated that I might be less than enthusiastically cooperative about it, she would awaken me in such a way as to insure a bright mood. Some mornings, this would take the form of her sitting on my bed with a bowl of fresh-from-the-garden berries sprinkled with sugar and a drizzle of cream which she would spoon into my mouth as she calmly told me about "today's adventure." Other times, it was warm pancakes, dripping with real maple syrup.

Sadly, if the HR person for my company tried to bribe me in a similar fashion, it would probably go all wrong. sigh.