How often do you use the phrase “I should have (enter past-tense verb here)”? I decided this week to count how many times I use it, and today alone I am up to 14. I should have brought more than one pair of shoes to Chicago. I should have called the doctor earlier in the day. I should have planned better for breakfast for myself and my teen. I should have graded papers. I should have read the news. I should have coordinated with my daughter earlier to figure out when she would travel up to see us. I should have…I should have….

Here is what I did today instead. I took my teen on a two block walk to get coffee at a local coffee place. Coffee for me, I mean. He doesn’t drink coffee yet. He had apple juice. I ordered him a breakfast sandwich on a bagel, full of protein and carbs and stuff he should eat. I ordered me a pumpkin walnut scone, coated in maple syrup icing to pair with my pretentiously priced latte. (On a side note here, is this inflation or do they have a cow they have to feed to put 2% milk in it? $6.50? And it’s only one size. On the other hand…I did like it.) Should I have ordered myself the acai breakfast bowl with whole grain bread on the side? I probably should have. Should I have asked for skim milk, or oat milk, or cashew milk (upcharge), or yak milk or whatever? I probably should have opted for plant-based milk. No one drinks yak milk. Calm down.

I should have bought tickets to see the Frank Lloyd Wright house to give my teen some culture in this fine city. I should have insisted. I should have made him do something other than hang out and play video games most of the afternoon.

I did not.

Nope. Instead, we walked another three blocks to the bookstore I love here. That’s how I found out the owners are retiring and the store is closing. I want to cry! Should I have gone in, said a final good-bye and moved on because it’s just a bookstore? Probably. But I took Teen in there, made him choose a book, picked two books and three pairs of socks and two bumpers stickers, and spent unbudgeted money making a retail memory that in the grand scheme has no importance whatsoever.

We walked back to the apartment we are staying in, he loping along, and me dragging slightly, and chatted about nothing. He told me about characters on his video games. I think. I told him that he couldn’t be on screen (you know, ’cause good parenting demands that of me), and he had to read the book I forced him to pick out. And myself?

Well, I should have picked up the work I brought with me. I have 138 assignments to grade at last count. And three re-submissions. Probably more, by now. But instead, I picked up How To Be Eaten (Maria Adelmann) and finished it in one sitting. I read the stories of narrative women wronged by the morals of their fairy tales. (Was Red Riding Hood naive to tell a wolf where she was going? Maybe. Or maybe just was just a kid. Should Gretel have found a way – any way – to not end up as a witch’s plaything? Probably. Or maybe she was just a kid. I think you see where I am going with this.

I read things like this, and I think about my daughter, my sons, my students. The kids we have in our world – products of centuries of human advancement. I think about how often I use the phrase “should.” Those on the upside of power wield that word relentlessly against those on the downside of power. We are so ready to tell someone else what they should have done, instead of whatever it is that happened to them, so they wouldn’t be on the downside of power, armchair quarterbacking as spectators of the full contact sport of living in the world.

I think that kids get it the most from adults. Very few phrases make my cringe as much as “at your age you should be able to…” and then whatever gap in ability the adult perceives the child to have. Tie your shoes, keep track of your homework, walk without running, sit without fidgeting, talk without shouting, be quiet when instructed, know how to use a comma (guilty), etc.. But why? Or, for that matter, how? Are these not skills that must be taught? Shouldn’t we be turning that “should” pointer the other way – to ourselves?

Here is my personal challenge to me. I am going to see if I can prune the “shoulds” out of my vocabulary. Instead, I want to look at me, my kids, my students, the grown-ups (and so-called-grown-ups, you know who you are) around me and see the “have” without the “should.” Teen and I have spent a beautiful day listening to the urban sounds around us, relaxing and enjoying the simplicity of not meeting demands. Because of that, I now have the capacity now to do the grading I have waiting for me.

Maybe I should write a blog about it? Wait! I have!