The Manager is Watching so Behave!

The manager is watching.

He is the guy over there with the walkie talkie, you just missed him.

She just looked your way from behind the cash register.

There! He's the well-dressed man wearing a tie.

Sometimes, they will ask me. "Is that the manager? Which one is the manager?"

That one, this one. You, my dear misbehaving children, are being watched. I asked you not to run around jump around touch anything to behave nicely and I suggest that you do so because, yes, my little dumplings, the manager is watching.

They pause, and look around, slightly concerned. Is she kidding, or has the manager really got her eye on me?

Is mama crying wolf again?

I know the misbehavior is fueled by a sugar high coupled with fatigue. Sometimes, it's the opposite, a blood sugar low. Sometimes, the behavior that pushes limits and tries my patience is just beyond explanation. Clearly, the best place for us at times like these is to be home, away from society. Yet, it happens on occasion when we're say, lunching at restaurant (Is this a park? Well, then, let's stay seated, shall we?) or when we're, as happened recently, riding cable cars in San Francisco.

Slap!

"Oh, my gosh! What did you do? We don't hit each other - ever. Please be good, boys, we're almost at the front of the cable car line."

Slap! Shove! Push!

"Stop, please!" and then, exasperated, I invoke the manager-is-watching-you warning. "The man in the brown hat won't let you on board if you keep hitting each other, do you see him? When you hit your brother, he looked over here."

Again, a pause and this time the fighting stops. The manager is watching. Oh, how he's watching!

In reality, of course, most of the "managers" are oblivious to the role they're playing in my desperate effort to get my kids to behave. My friend Carla invokes the manager-is-watching approach as well when her girls aren't listening to her in a public place. "There's the manager, " she'll say, pointing at some random shopper. Sometimes the "manager" will shoot back a baffled look to which Carla will sweetly reply, "Yes, the Manager, " wink wink. In other words, play along, stranger guy, or else!

I try not to overuse the whole manager/park ranger/police officer/life guard/principal thing but sometimes, it just slips out. I know it's bad parenting, but there are times when I just need a manager, albeit for the briefest of moments! At the Ikea cafe the other day, my boys would not stay seated at the table. They were on the verge of being out-of-control. Spying a bus boy out of the corner of my eye, I made him the manager. Bus boys make great "managers" as do men in suits and generally people who look busy or like they mean business. He may be just a dude at Target looking for a new deodorant, but if he's wearing a red shirt, well then, he's your manager.

At Ikea, my friend Linsey leans over and calls me on my ghost manager disorder. "I heard you say the manager thing a few times, " she points out. I'm not sure if this impresses or distresses her (probably both, as it does to me) but a few minutes later I hear her try it out, "That's the manager, " she says discreetly, to her 3 kids.

He, he. I know I shouldn't gloat. As I said, it's not one of my finer parenting moments. There are better ways, I KNOW. It's not the only parenting technique up my sleeve but there are times - indeed, there are times! - when invoking the manager-is-watching approach gets me just the results I need.

But at 4.5-years-old, they're starting to call me on it, my smartie pants kids. "No Mom, that's not the manager, that's just someone walking down the street," they'll say. "No, no, that was the manager, " I assure them.

My kids stare after the man in disbelief, but they err on the side of caution and stop the offending behavior.

Okay kids, you're right that's not the manager, but I think I just saw Santa disappear into that building over there and believe me, he's watching you!

Original post to Silicon Valley Moms Blog. Akemi wants everyone to know that her boys aren't as naughty as she makes them out to be. She blogs about behavior, both good and bad, on her blog, Chalk and Cheese Chronicles and over at Mad About Multiples. She's @svtwinmom on Twitter.