Lilly Sway

                        I take joy in all things, especially in my children. Well today I try practice calmness, fairness, and total openness with my children, and with every passing day of course there is a new challenge to make my job well, interesting. When I was being raised there were very few thing you could get up enough nerve to counter your parents about. My mother always said to me “hey one day you will have children of your own and you will really know what I’m talking about”,  she would then say again no to what ever it is I wanted,  and that was that, until I became a teen, then of course everything my parents said was unfair, and we never seemed to agree on the occasions that I wanted to go somewhere.

Well today I became aware of my mothers warnings I’m sure at some point when you were growing up you heard the phrase (”wait until you have your own children then you will understand”). Oh my goodness today I said those very words to my daughter and I was not as nice to her as my mother was when she said them to me. It all started when my husband gave my 14 year old permission to go to a valentines day dance and I did not agree, I said that it was not that she was not going to a well supervised outing, or in danger, but I believed at that time that we would be opening a new can of worms about curfew,  and then about the where she would want to go next. Well she went and I did my best for her to have a first good outing, but when we went to pick her up she wanted to wait until the whole thing was completely over and of course, the can I spend the night over my new friends house, and before I knew it,  my house was full of girls for a sleep over, which was OK I would rather have a house full of kids I don’t know than to have my daughter go somewhere to spend the night over someones house that I had not already met the parents of.

We did have fun all 15 of us,  we ate a lot of junk and played win lose or draw, the best game we played was mix and match and I know that you must think that I’m crazy, but we played it with a double deck and these teens can get very competitive, so we made teems of 5 and played for 2 straight hours so, not a bad way to spend the evening huh. Well finally the next day by noon everyone had been picked up and we had the clean up. and that was that. or so I thought that was Friday night and Saturday afternoon my teen asked her dad if she could go to a party Sunday, he of course said yes. she went and was home by 9:pm, she was happy and had fun, and all was well for the evening.

Then she had been invited to eat dinner with one of her new friends on Tuesday evening the girls grand parents were having a party and she wanted to have a few friends over and do their homework and have dinner together and then I could pick my daughter at 8:pm I said no,  my husband said ” what would be the harm in it”. it was a school night I reminded him, he then said oh just let her go, so I did. When I went for her she convinced me to come inside to meet the grandparents parents, they were very nice. The grandparents turned out know my parents and after exchanging telephone numbers they offered me some coffee and refreshments, but it was late, I still had dinner dishes waiting for me and so I politely declined the invitation and and  my daughter and I went along our way.

Upon arriving home my daughter announced to her father that I was very rude to her friends parents and stormed off to her room, after explaining to my husband that I was polite in my decline to indulge myself. I caught up to my daughter and asked her why she said to her father that I was rude. She said that the grandparents had invited all of the girls who were there tonight to their ranch to ride horses on the upcoming weekend and that she was sure that I had ruined it for her now by not having coffee with them. I said that I was sure that I was not rude and that an invitation to go to a ranch with strangers was not OK and that she could not go. She then told me that if I had stopped for a moment to have coffee with them that they would no longer be strangers. I asked her if she knew how ridiculous that statement sounded. and then she just turned away and cried, so I left her room and was sure she would be fine in the morning.

Wrong, wrong, wrong she was still upset but, I was already in unison with my husband about her not going on this particular venture, since we barely new the parents and the ranch thing was for a whole weekend, so the answer was still a no and this time we did not concede. She was very angry and began to sulk there was not a day that passed us by that we were not chastised about the strict rules we were all of a sudden enforcing on her. My 14 year old was comparing herself to her 22 year old brother and his outing on the weekend mind you he takes a full college load works a full time job and does computer repair an the side, when he goes out he is an adult and a darn good mentor, my daughter was not his age and still had a lot of growing up to do.

But the invitations for outings kept on coming for the next three weeks and weekends. The declines got easier and easier to say no to, because there was the girls just showing up to go to a dance that there parents let them go to because it was for teens only and no drinks allowed, and the best part was that it closed at 10:pm, the no was that this place was across town,  some where like a party across town,  to the mall, to the movies, to the spa, to a baby showers of one of the girls aunts,  and the parents were just going to drop them off, I’m for as much fun as the next girl, but not every weekend, not every other day, and most certainly not unescorted to all of the above. call me what you want, because I am now labeled the overprotective parent,  but there are a lot things that make you an over protective parent, and I can assure you I am not.

Then it dawned on me You give a mouse a cookie then they want a glass of milk. I talked to my daughter and explained to her just what the rules for our home still were. I also took the time to remind her that new things that are offered to you are OK once in a while  and of course the fact that its new  makes it taste better than anything you have ever had, but that if you overindulge yourself you could become sick or compelled to just have that same thing. She just rolled her eyes and said that I was really being a mean person, by not letting her go to these places with her friends so then I blurted it out with out so much as a thought I said (When you have children of your own you will understand”). Of course I knew she didn’t believe me,  and you know what it did not matter to me weather or not she did. I had once again come full circle I now understood that mothers just know it all and for good reason.

Food For The Mind

Lilly”s Way