What’s Appropriate?!
You’re guess is as good as mine. Part of me thinks what does it matter. Which ever I choose someone will say it’s not good enough. Either I’m too easy or not hard enough. And where is the magic wand I’ve been asking for??! You know, the one that makes everything happen in 14 seconds or less… without having to wait… or earn anything?! What??.. Such an object doesn’t exist?? Everyone must wait?? Everyone must earn things?? Nothing happens overnight!!?! OMG! No way!.. So do me a favor, ok? Go tell that to my kids. Because they won’t believe me when I tell them the same thing. All 3 of my girls think they should snap their fingers and immediately get they’re deepest desires…. right…. NOW!
On top of the whole Nikki saga I also have a Dani and Ashley bitching at me in my other ear. They both want it all and they want it now. And I’m supposed to figure out how to make it all happen now. Even if I’m not ok with the things they’re asking. And if I say as much.. well… then I’m just a big overprotective bitch who gives them nothing ….EVER!
Does anyone else even give a shit that I care about my kids?! I care who they hang with, who they date, where they go and what they do. Does that make me a psycho?? And i feel like I am giving and giving with them and no sooner do they get what they want and poof… they have a new list of wants, all ready to be filled… right…. NOW! I feel like I don’t get a chance to breath anymore. I don’t get a chance to adjust. Instead of slowly adding the warmer and warmer water so I can get used to it; someone threw my ass into a pot of boiling water and said.. “Here, figure it out!”
And neither of these girls will back off for even a week or two so I can try to get them the things they want. They ask for something… like say… a later curfew. And I told them that it would happen after we’ve moved. So they thought that… that would mean the first second they stepped over the threshold into the new house caring a box.
Don’t give me anytime to talk to Rick about it or anything. Just bitch and whine at me and say I never give them anything or let them do anything. My husband is a very tricky soul. If you dump something in his lap and demand an answer…. right…. NOW! The answer you’ll get is No. There is a way to approach him with things and if it’s done properly you can get the things you want… probably as much as 85% of the time. Sometimes even more. But if you do it the “dump and demand” method you can bet on getting what you want 0% of the time.
And here’s the thing about curfew. I’m not comfortable laying out a blanket time without something more attached to it, because then even when there’s nothing to do, kids tend to stay out just because. I don’t want my kids hanging out on the corner somewhere just because they can be out till “x” time. I’d be much happier with more of a flex time thing depending on what they want to go and do. Which in the long-run works out better for them if they’d actually stop and think about it. For instance on so and so’s birthday they all want to go out to the movies.. but the movie won’t end till 11:30pm… and let’s say Ashley’s curfew is 10pm.. well then she can’t go. But if she’s on a flex-time curfew then she can ask for that specific thing, “Hey I want to go to this movie but it won’t get over till 11:30pm.” and I’d most likely be ok with that. I let her go see the Blue Man group at the end of April with the drama club at school (No she’s not in the drama club, they always put up their extra tickets for sale to the student body) and she wasn’t home till after midnight. So she can’t say I wouldn’t let her go, just because. I’d have to have a good reason not to let her.
The other reason I’m the local jerk right now… Ashley asked us to let her go on an over night trip with her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s mother, out of state, to his grandmother’s house on a lake. Well first of all my husband and I don’t trust her boyfriend and secondly his mother doesn’t really parent him. He’s allowed to do whatever he wants and never has any restrictions or limitations. So it’d be like letting her go off with no adult supervision at all… and… with a boy I don’t trust. So after thinking about it for 3 days.. I was still not ok with it. But I ran it by my husband and he flipped out. He said No way, obviously. So she’s mad because we won’t let her go. I told her if it was with Amanda, Kelly, Kayla, Jen or many of her other friends we’d probably be ok with it. But come on… with this kid? We don’t trust him at all… or his parents. But we’re jerks because we give a shit about her, lol. Like most kids she wants what’s not appropriate.
There are days… quite often actually… where I couldn’t ask for better kids. I have a great bunch of kids. I love them more then life itself. But sometimes I feel like I just can’t win with them. I know I’m a good mom. I just wish they’d slow down a bit and cut me a little slack. They need to learn to meet me in the middle instead of standing on their side with their hand out bitching at me.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 10:53 am and is filed under Family Ties, Just Me, Parenting Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.