Month: May 2017

Future attorney graces the cover of Parents Magazine

My mother immediately got me a subscription to Parents Magazine the day I told her I was pregnant with my first child. I remember thinking it was a rather odd gift, as I already knew everything there was to know about parenting, (as do all people who’ve never actually raised a child).

But eventually I concluded it couldn’t hurt to thumb through the mag every month – if for no other reason than to clip the diaper coupons.

That’s how I happened to stumble across a particularly life-changing article about “saying no” to one’s children. The author of the article warned young parents against being overly negative with their children. It suggested trying to eliminate the word “no” from your parenting vocabulary – replacing it with more affirming responses.

I fell for this hard, y’all. I was all in. Here was a concept that completely meshed with my naturally positive personality.

Besides, who wants to raise their family in a culture of negativity? Not me – that’s for sure! The word “no” hit the trash pile right alongside the shoulder-padded business suits I wouldn’t be needing as I headed into the 1990s. (Or ever, as it turns out.)

Here’s how it works –

Your child asks: “Mommy, can I have a Popsicle?

You say: “You sure can! Right after you eat all your green beans!”

Or…

Your Little Darling inquires: “Mommy can I ride a giraffe?”

You respond: “You betcha! As soon as you finish up at university, you can apply for your Zoo Keeper’s License and then you will have a trillion opportunities to ride the giraffes. Probably even the elephants and zebras too!”

You get the idea. This is a parenting skill any fool can master. Once you get the hang of it, it starts to flow naturally. You’ll become be a total Yes-Mom.

Remember, it’s not as much about “keeping it real,” as it is about “keeping it realmy.” In the realm of possibility – you know, to avoid killing their wee little dreams.

It wasn’t long before I realized this not only worked with young children, it worked like a charm with young husbands too. As in…

Your Husband suggests something you have absolutely no intention of ever doing:

You respond: “Yes, Honey, that sounds so fun! We will definitely take a look at doing that one day!”

I’m pretty sure from the late 80s through the first decade of the new millennium-
I.
Never.
Said.
No.

Be careful not to confuse this particular parenting theory with the “Permissive Parenting” movement that swept the country a few decades earlier. This doesn’t mean you can’t be strict and have standards. My kids weren’t running wild, doing things they ought not, per se. They were just running around unrealistically optimistic and ever-hopeful.

There’s only one little catch – it turns out, most of the parenting advice I read back in the day, was geared towards ambitious, energetic, enthusiastic young parents. (People whose offspring proffer tiny non-threatening, manageable toddler-esque requests.)

But, two interesting things happen as our kids hit their tweens, teens and twenties that start to render all this positivity a little less manageable.

A) Parents get worn out and start to lose their elasticity, just as…
B) The kids’ requests get more outrageous over time.

I mean, sure, your kid can cut the dog’s hair some day or ride his tricycle to Mars, but there’s no way in Hell he’s throwing a Beer Bash for 150 of his closest friends in your home.

So, eventually you’ll start to notice yourself turning into that Negative Parent you swore you’d never be…slipping in the occasional head shake, a “nuh–uh” or perhaps even an actual, “ummm…Not No – but Hell No!” When your kid (completely unaccustomed to this unfamiliar vibe) gets a whiff of your bad attitude, he/she may become disoriented, disillusioned and confused.

Then, I guess the proverbial crap could hit the fan.

I never did run across any articles that advised what to do when that happens. But I did clip a ton of coupons that gave me $1.00 off a box of wipes with purchase of a 64-count box of Huggies.

I remember when I was a kid we would start weeks in advance badgering my mother to tell us what she wanted for Mother’s Day. It went without saying she was going to get The Mother’s Day Special – Breakfast in Bed.

Consisting of:

-Eggs cooked to order (but served cold and rubbery)
-Congealed Grits
-Hockey Puck Biscuits (use your back teeth)
-Bacon  (You’ll be cleaning up grease ’til Christmas)

That breakfast fare was going down no matter what. It was a tradition. But we always asked her what else she wanted.

Every single year, without fail, she would request the exact same thing…

“All I want for Mother’s Day is Peace and Harmony. I just want everyone in my family to love each other and get along!”

Hmmmm…no can do…what’s your second choice?

I can remember, as a young girl, thinking ‘she must have a tiny screw loose.’ We are offering to buy you a real gift Lady! With your own money! And we will more than likely fight over who got you the best thing. Also a tradition.

My sister sticking her tongue out at me.  Notice the expression of dismay and disappointment on Mom’s face…

Even as we got older, we remained as puzzled as ever by her annual heartfelt request…

Who does she think she is? One of The Beatles?

My siblings and I came of age during the height of this country’s peace movement. We grew up listening to all the hits cranked out by the former Beatles, who couldn’t seem to get along in the original group, but managed to take a stand afterward; constantly beseeching the world for peace after they were solo artists.

They each had a “peace song,” except for John Lennon, who had two.

None of us were averse to giving peace a chance, but we had been saving up our allowances for weeks and, budding Capitalists that we were, we wanted to go to the 5&Dime and give merchandise a chance.

In spite of her stubborn resistance, we managed to give Doris some fabulous gifts through the years:

I made us matching Mother/Daughter halter tops in 1972 during my halter-top making phase. Now that I think about it, I don’t recall ever seeing Mom in hers, but I sported mine on the daily.

A few years later, I saved $10 of my babysitting money and bought her a Collector’s Edition Plate from Avon. I rode home from the Avon lady’s house on my bike with the plate in a bag, which slid off my handlebars while I was trying to get my kick-stand down. Mama said the nick “gave the plate character!”

One year my brother, sister and I spent an entire day assembling Mom a scrapbook. We argued loudly and incessantly the entire afternoon over which pictures to include. The oldest child, my sister, always won – So I got the last word years later by writing a blog.

My sister, my brother and me getting scrappy over that scrapbook.

It was a boon if Dad stepped in with financial assistance, because his participation significantly increased our Mother’s Day gift budget. This allowed us to procure:
-perfume she didn’t use (an assault on her sinuses)
-necklaces she rarely wore (moms don’t like heart shaped jewelry as much as people think) and
-outfits she wouldn’t be caught dead in.

But the one thing I know for a fact – we never gave the woman the peace and harmony she so desperately craved.

But it’s okay. They say “Paybacks are Hell.” We are all 3 parents now, beseeching our own kids for peace and harmony.

And,  like The Beatles, we know we will never get it. But we’ll take a strong stand for it, nonetheless.

As we wait patiently for our own kids to be parents.

James texting the family for a little love today

Many of us have children returning home from college this week for the entire summer, so in the interest of peace and harmony, it might be a good time to set some boundaries.

Understandably, this can be a very challenging time, as you’ve been on your own since August, living your life however you please…but now your kids are back in the house.

The first time I ever heard the word, “boundaries,” I was running errands and listening to talk radio. (Talk radio in the 90s was affordable therapy and free life-coaching for those of us who married young and couldn’t afford the real thing.)

One day, one of the radio Life-Gurus was talking about “boundaries.” Enthralled, I tuned in. It was an entirely foreign concept to me.

“That is you and yours, this is me and mine. Here is the line you don’t cross!” A simple enough concept about respecting others. But nothing I thought would ever apply to my family.

My husband and I got married before we finished college. We never bothered to establish any pesky boundaries. Partly because it wasn’t a “thing” back then and partly because when you get married that young, you’re almost like siblings.

We have shared everything through the years…

Our morning Coffee
Multiple addresses
Jumbo popcorn at the movies
Influenza and other sundry viruses
Damp bath towels and
Memories

We switch the radio station without even asking and eat off each other’s plates. We also constantly interrupt each other and call it “interactive listening.”

We muddled through life and managed okay in our boundary-free existence. And then when the babies came (in droves) we certainly never considered setting any boundaries between ourselves and our tiny issue.  Why would we?

But, things got dicey when our offspring reached their late teens and early twenties. These are the tricky years when our kids feel the need to start asserting their independence and putting up walls. They become less adorable and far less adoring almost overnight.  While this is an essential and requisite part of the maturation process, it’s super difficult.

For the parents.

Mostly because we can’t help but notice all the boundary setting. And it’s shockingly one-sided.

That’s right – our children have attempted to set boundaries for us and when we inevitably trespass, we risk the accusation that we’ve assaulted their fragile and budding adultness. Meanwhile, they traipse around our house dancing all over our rights like hippies at Woodstock in a rainstorm. It’s a bloody free-for-all around here for the millenials.

So I’m determined to be proactive. I’ll start with the following guidelines for peace, but reserve the option to add on as deemed necessary:

-If you put your clothes in my washing machine and that action necessitates moving the previous load into my dryer, which then results in a load of clean dry clothes in need of folding, please fold them. I will do the same for you and I give you my word, by summer’s end, I will have logged more folded loads than everyone in our household combined.

Mom for the win.  Not that it’s a contest.

-If you should return home to find (as Santana sang in the 70s) “the house is dark and my pots are cold,” I’m probably hanging out with Jean and Joan and who-knows-who. Please feel free to prepare your own dinner.

-Likewise, if you open the refrigerator or the pantry and don’t find the soy burgers, almond milk or the particular brand of organic granola you prefer, please find your way to the grocery store.  You can leave your receipt on the counter.   Since we don’t eat that crap around here, I tend not to buy it.

And one more thing….as hard as it may be to believe, if my bedroom door is shut, I might just be trying to get away from you. Yes, YOU my pet. So if you perceive an injustice, or have an opposing religious or political viewpoint you want to rail about, consider putting it into a text or an email. I promise to read it and get back to you with a rebuttal.

Lastly, to all my fellow parents out there who, like me, find themselves running a glorified B & B (Bed & Boundaries) this summer, always remember: “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s probably your college student.”

The happiest days of my life were obviously my wedding day and the 5 days I gave birth to my 5 children. Blah-blah-blah. But following those memorable days, suspiciously close, in the number 7 -? slots, are all the glorious days in my life that my cleaning lady comes.

Which is why the verbal exchange I had with my youngest child this morning was so enormously disconcerting.

Son –  giving me a quick hug as he departs for a long and tedious day at the local high school:

“Can I have friends over tomorrow night?”

“Can you have friends over tomorrow?” I repeat back to him slowly, as though English is not my first language – buying myself some time – while I mentally flip through my glamorous social calendar for any and all unlikely conflicts.

(You never know, it’s possible I could be hosting a large party tomorrow night at our home, which would be entirely incompatible with his plans to have a swarm of teenage boys milling about in our driveway… unless they are a Valet Service.)

But no. So I offered up the only deterrent I could think of.

“My cleaning lady is coming tomorrow.”

It has come to my attention lately that we have a large and rowdy group of teenagers at our house every other weekend on the reg. And for some inexplicable reason, these large social gatherings are totally in sync with the schedule my cleaning lady is on. Every other Friday I pay her a handsome amount of money to clean my home and every other Friday, just a few short hours later, these kids arrive to entirely eradicate my bliss.

You just wouldn’t believe the domestic destruction. Every other Saturday morning, my home looks like a hard rock band from the 70s stayed over while blazing their way through a 38-city tour.

But, all of that aside, it was my son’s next utterance that truly filled me with the dismay that only a mother’s heart can know.  I will never be able to un-hear these words:

“Do we even really need her?”   

“Do we even really need her?” I repeated back slowly.  Again, no comprende.

As I mulled over my response, I realized I wasn’t completely sure if he was suggesting we might not need her tomorrow, as the place looked relatively clean and presentable enough for his friends, or if he might’ve been suggesting that we might not need her EVER.

Perhaps he was insinuating that I could reasonably be expected to handle the housecleaning these days. (Now that all other superfluous offspring are grown and have fled the nest, and we are down to a sensible amount of children) (one) (him).

I could see where he might possibly come to this conclusion, as I was still lying in bed when he came to tell me goodbye this morning, earnestly trying to catch up on the past 30 years of no sleep.

“She needs the money, I can’t cancel on her,” I responded yanking my blanket higher around myself, somewhat defensively.

I don’t really know why I chose to answer in this manner. I just did. I actually have no idea if my cleaning lady needs the money. She might not. It’s entirely possible she shows up here every other Friday purely out of pity for me.

Rather than turn things around on him and ask if “we really need” a passel of teenagers here tomorrow night, I chose to take the high road and spark an intellectual discourse on Economic Interdependence in a Free Market Society.

For whatever reason, he chose not to engage me and left immediately for school.

There’s no way I’m letting go of my cleaning lady.  It could be way worse.  I can assure you, if I was the one solely responsible for cleaning this house, we would never dream of having Bad Company over here for a sleepover. Not the rock group or the local teenagers.

Nonetheless, I might consider switching my lady to Mondays…