Why does it have to be “Good Cop, Bad Cop”?
by regular contributor Brian Hoover
“So who’s going to be the disciplinarian?”my sister wanted to know. As if this was a faraway decision my wife and I wouldn’t have to make until our daughter was a surly adolescent. The greasy plastic carcasses of our take-out dinner glistened in the dim mood lighting, and a few empty bottles—a Pinot Grigio and a couple of IPAs—stood at odd intervals around the table. Baby monitor static whirred from somewhere amid the mess. A rare grown-ups night in with my sister and her husband, who’d driven north five states to spend the weekend satisfying a serious niece-jones.
My wife testified with a raised hand that she would fill this role, obviously, end of story.
Now, hang on, I said, let’s be reasonable here.
Wasn’t our parenting plan one of consistency? Of communication? Wasn’t our kid a pretty good kid so far because her parents were on the same page? Did she get away with certain things when only one of us had the watch? Did her parents ever overrule each other?
And for God’s sake, wasn’t I the one with eight years of professional experience as a behavior therapist?
My wife conceded, but hypothesized that she’d probably end up playing bad cop to my good. She seemed resigned to this point. Leslie, she believes, is daddy’s girl, through and through.
But I bristled at this as well. Why couldn’t we try to be good cop, good cop? There was no reason to believe, as I saw it, that either of us was deficient in the ability to support or to enforce, to establish limits and stand by them. Neither of us held an edge in our capacity to guide, rebuke, or love.
My daughter is a good kid. Of course, she has her moments (as any sixteen-month-old will)—like when she looks right at you and lets the milk dribble out of her mouth, or the increasing selectivity of her hearing, or her ongoing affinity for the word “no”—but my wife and I feel we lucked out. We really got ourselves a good one.
And she’s a good one not because of me, God knows, and not because of my wife.
She’s a good one because of me and my wife.
I’m with you. In our house I’m the “bad” cop in so far as I don’t take kaka. Mom is the good cop, in that she gives many chances and is far more flexible in her requirements and does a lot more for the kids. However, I think I’m the real good cop because with me the kids learn real quick not to drop the toilet seat, not to leave behind the dishes, not to get help from someone without saying “thanks!”. And my wife is the real bad cop because kids learn the opposite. Neither of us is like that all the time, we’re mostly congruent, but I wish we could both be on exactly the same page (my page
all the time. But I know sometimes I’m too harsh and she’s too easy. We counterpoint each other.
Brian, As the bad cop in my family, I really appreciated this. My wife has gone beyond Good Cop to Corrupt Cop–the one who looks the other way in order to avoid the inevitable conflict. That leaves me to be the night stick wielding (figuratively speaking, of course) bad guy who makes things happen (lights out, eating of veggies, etc.). I don’t even know how it happened!
I have a tip that other dads might find useful. My wife is a fan of SuperNanny and “tough love” advocate Dr. Laura (drlaura.com) … in theory. In practice, she’s a softy. In cases where our reactions diverge, my new strategy – instead taking the position opposite her – is to ask her “What would Supernanny do?” It’s working. Hey, I think I’ll write a post on this…