I would NEVER have spoken to my parents like that

My twins aren't toddlers anymore. They don't need me to get them dressed or make their beds. But now there's the other stuff.

"What do you care?"
"Why? Why? Why? So what?"

My son was reading in his room (which in itself is weird). I went in to check on him, asked how he was doing, if I could clean his glasses.

"LEAVE ME ALONE."

He didn't even look at me.

Woah… where did that come from? Am I raising an entitled son? Because I would never have dared talk to my parents like that.

The reason I would never have dared: I was scared of them. In my house, that was called respect.

The little years wore out my body. These ones go straight for how I was raised. So when my son yells at me to leave him alone, the first thing I hear is the old rule:

You don't talk to your mother like that.

Most advice about talking back focuses on the child. Correct the tone. Don't let them speak to you that way.

And sometimes, yes.

But it skips the part I'm more interested in: why did those particular words hit me so hard? Because if I don't know that, an old rule about obedience can easily sound like me "teaching respect."

I don't want my kids speaking to me however they want. At the table the other day, my son said:

"Get me some milk!"

“I’ll help you when you ask me respectfully.”

He did.

But standing in his bedroom was different. He was tired and reading by himself. I'd walked into his room wanting his attention, and he'd told me (badly) that he wanted to be left alone.

He was the one who got called disrespectful. In my head, anyway.

If I'd made that moment about "respect," it would have turned into a lesson (I know myself). It was not the moment for one.

I want him to respect me. I just don't want him to learn that respecting me means being afraid to tell me what he wants.

So that day, I said:

"I don't like you talking to me this way."

And I left the room he had asked me to leave.

Thirty minutes later, I was making dinner, he came downstairs and hugged me.

If I would never have spoken to my parents like that is a sentence you've thought recently, don't wait for the next argument to figure out what respect means in your house.

Ask yourself what you want it to look like between you and your kid. Get concrete.

Maybe it's:
You can ask me to leave you alone.
You can disagree with me.
You can't call me names.
And I owe you the same.

The next time you hear you don't talk to your mother like that in your head, check what “disrespect” means to you before you decide what needs correcting.

Then pick a completely boring moment and ask: "What do you think being respectful to each other means in our family?"

Listen. Tell them what it means to you too. You might disagree on some of it.

Good.