Tip of the Hat; Wag of the Finger!

(Reposted from May, 10, 2010)

In honor of the day AFTER Mother’s Day, I am compelled to comment on a few things. So, to borrow Stephen Colbert’s format, here is my version of “Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger!”

First off, I’m going to give a tip of the hat to all mothers in general. Obviously, the whole concept of “growing a person” is wild to me, and that’s only the beginning! For those of you who manage to have children and raise them with any modicum of success, kudos to you!

The older I get and the more that I see, the more that I am amazed at my own mother’s unbelievable strength in raising my sisters and me. If I had been 26 years old with 3 children and my husband had left me, I know without a doubt that I would not have remotely handled the situation with anything resembling grace. However, my mom just rolled up her sleeves, got multiple jobs, and managed to care for all of us in the best way that she knew. She did so completely unselfishly, despite numerous challenges –many of which my father was responsible for creating.

Through it all, she managed to be a wonderful role model, never stooping to the machinations that I now see daily from other divorced mothers and fathers. Because of that, I will always not only love her, but look up to her with so much respect. That respect holds true even in the light of grown-up eyes, now that I can see and understand the larger situation.

I have spent weeks at my sister’s home, taking care of my nephew and / or my niece, “for fun.” I went home each time more in love with those children, but utterly exhausted. It SHOULD be that way.

My sister gets them up for breakfast. She fixes them something to eat while trying to find time to actually eat something too. She gets them dressed for school or day care and then drives them to those places. In the evenings, she has them playing, doing homework, showering, watching a pre-determined amount of TV, fed, and on to bed. On the weekends, she finds something educational for them to watch on TV, or sits and plays with them whenever they like. For Bryce, he loves to watch wrestling and that isn’t appropriate every day, so they record it and he earns the time to watch it over the weekend. She listens to them tell her stories, she reads with them, she helps my nephew with his homework. Somehow, she also finds the time to work out, prepare for her own job, make play dates for the kids so that they are socialized and have friends, does laundry, actually makes cute outfits for my niece, grocery shops, etc. etc. etc.

That is her normal week WITHOUT even thinking of anything that a normal grown up would be doing in her own life. There is no date night, nor even a concept of watching TV on her own –which is pretty much unheard of for a TiVo addict like myself. To sum it up, she is a good mother. Her children come first. Period. She doesn’t just pay lip service to the concept.

Even adding all of those things up, if you saw her family, they don’t all look exhausted. Not only does Kimberly look great, her children are some of the most well-dressed, adorable, intelligent, well-mannered children you would ever meet. You will almost never find my nephew dirty. You will almost never find Averi without her hair fixed, in a perfectly matching outfit, with a bow on her head that is larger than her face.

Are they “Stepford children?” No. They have their fits just like any other children. When they do, though, it doesn’t mean that plans get changed or they begin to get sitters in order to leave the house without the kids, as if removing the children from the situation is going to somehow miraculously teach them how to behave. They are taken aside, spanked, punished, get a time-out, or get hot sauce (in Averi’s case).

That, to me, is being a good parent. The children know that they will be consistently disciplined. They know what the rules are. They know what their chores are. They are not taught to work the system. They are instead taught the “why” of good behavior. They know that they are loved and that they should show love to other people. They know that what is in their hearts is the most important. Behavior is only a reflection of those hearts.

For example, recently, Bryce and Averi were bickering and got into a fight. Averi kicked Bryce and ran, and managed to fall down and hurt herself in the process. No fault of Bryce’s, obviously, but he was so upset that his sister was hurt and that he was even marginally involved, he punished himself. Seriously. That is a child whose heart is in the right place. His behavior had nothing to do with how to get ahead or get the most for himself. He was genuinely upset that he played a part in his sister getting hurt and he thought that he deserved to learn a lesson and be punished for that. Averi, in turn, apologized and cried. She loves her older brother and was distressed that he was upset.

For all of you mothers who strive to do the best for your children, regardless of its toll on your own life, I can only say that I am in complete and utter awe of you.

Since there is always a point / counterpoint, here goes the “wag of the finger” section. Don’t get me wrong here; I understand that motherhood is extraordinarily difficult. I have friends who have made a conscious decision to not have children, precisely because they know that they are not yet ready to be that unselfish. In a lot of ways, I give more respect to that decision than to a lot of the ones to have children, since to me, that is a much more difficult choice. It is hard to take a look at yourself and your life and recognize that you are not yet ready to put your life on the back burner and become secondary in all ways to the needs of another person. By not taking that gut check, you are doing a disservice to the child that you would bring into the world.

While I understand (more than most would know) that it is a tough draw for a woman to not have children when “everyone else is having them,” that is simply not a good enough reason. To me, the unforgivable behavior is NOT making a conscious decision on anything, and then acting as if something just happened to you. If you do not daily make the decision to not create a life, you are by default making the decision to be irresponsible. That alone indicates that you aren’t ready to be a parent, if you are so selfish as to not even consider the ramifications on that possible new life. If you can’t be bothered to take the time to consider the consequences of your actions –or failures to act –you certainly can’t be bothered to handle a child’s best interests.

Some of you might think that is a harsh statement, but I think that more people should make statements like that. More people should think. Sounds simple, but I don’t think anyone would be amazed at the lack of thinking that is rampant in today’s world.

While I have pointed out what I see as great parenting, I also see ample examples of bad parenting. Those are the parents who drag their children all over the place for themselves, without thinking of the impact on the child. Children need rules and consistency and a routine. They need definite bed times. They need definite dinner times. There are the parents who don’t take the children with them and instead rely on someone else to deal with them. Children don’t need to be foisted off on grandparents or sitters routinely. They need to know that they are one of the most important things in their parents’ life. They need to know it, not just be told that. They need stability.

There are the parents who fight in front of their children. The ones who complain about the things that they have to do. They complain and argue over whose turn it is to clean, whose turn it is to cook, whose turn it is to give them baths, etc. What they do not see is that the children feel badly about that. They don’t want to be burdens. They internalize their guilt and either act out or withdraw. If anyone thinks that their children don’t remember those things or feel that way, I am here to say otherwise. I remember the things that my dad did when I was 4 years old. I remember the dynamic between my parents when they were married. To this day, I can recite small arguments and comments that were made on random drives in the car that still amaze my mother.

I remember the things that my dad did when he and my mom were having problems. I remember things that my dad did while he was single for the second time. I remember the things that my step-mother did too. They may have thought that they were pointing out things with my mom, or influencing me in some way, or not considering me and my sisters at all, but the overall take-away as a grown up is that I know that they suck. Period.

I do attempt to cut my father and his dates at the time and my step-mother some slack. I recognize that they were young and selfish. I do not in turn wish that I hadn’t been born, but I do wish that they had wanted and managed to be real parents. –Then again, now they are old and selfish, but I see that as well.

I have seen more than one marriage dissolve and seen the fights that ensue. As I get older, I see my friends, both male and female, attempting to date and having to deal with exes who live and breathe to cause conflict. What those exes fail to see is that they chose to have the children, and they chose to get divorced. No divorce is all one person’s fault or another. Someone can say that you got divorced because one was cheating or not happy or whatever, but two people fail in a relationship; not just one. Part and parcel of all of your decisions is that you chose to have to deal with your ex forever, the moment that you chose to have children.

That means that you don’t have control anymore and you will (hopefully) have to deal with another male or female influence on your child. I can only imagine how difficult that can be, and how much it hurts, but I can also say that my own mother managed to never put that on us. It comes with the territory and, yes, it sucks. You no longer get full control of your child, or the influences in his / her life. Your ex gets to make an equal amount of those decisions, and you have to deal with it.

My mom’s behavior then leads me to have complete respect for her now. On the same hand, it leads me to have little to no respect for mothers who behave differently. It is a real shame that so many children that I see now will not be able to look back on their parents’ behavior proudly. If my mom had been one who slandered my father repeatedly or sent us for weekends without adequate clothing or provisions in order to prove some point to my dad, while I may have understood the pettiness, I would not have respect for it. If only the parents that I see behaving this way now could see that too before it is too late.

There comes a point in everyone’s life where you see your parents as people and not just as your parents. You can still love them and see the choices that they made, and even begin to understand what they thought they were doing. No one can explain to them how it affected you in the long run, and what you think of them looking back.

I understand that my step-mother had no concept of parenting. She certainly had no concept that when you marry a man who has children, you should be the secondary prerogative. The children come first, period. Does it mean that you don’t count at all? No. But it means that you should not make it a choice between you or the children. You have to actually take all of it on as your family too.

The same should be said of the mother. You don’t get to rule the father out of the child’s life. You have to take them on and the responsibility of co-parenting. Honestly, if the person was good enough at some point for you to date, sleep with, get married, and create a child, you yourself have admitted that they have some value. I will put the blame on most moms on this one, since ultimately, in many situations, they were the ones who decided to get pregnant. (I know that isn’t something that a woman would typically say, but if we are all so concerned with fighting for the right to control our own bodies, then take responsibility for it too.)

You have to understand that you really are only hurting your children by fighting. It isn’t divorce that hurts the children. It’s the irresponsible parenting that comes afterwards. But as I have said to more than one of my friends who find themselves single and feel as if they missed out on something or should be entitled to certain behavior, “Too damn bad. You don’t GET to act like that. You are a parent now.”

If you choose to do these things anyway, don’t pretend that you have your child’s best interest at heart. I, for one, will be the first to call bullshit on that –and wag my finger at you.