Parent’s Bill of Rights – Are YOU treated like dirt?

Morning!

Ah, the undying joys of raising a family.  Yes, the utterly magnificent live-as-you-see-it graying of your own hair, as you walk into the guest room and spot the quarter-sized hole in the wall with a hobby-horse stick, well, sticking out of it!

But I am truly getting ahead of the joyous experience that was my family this morning.  You see, we have a guest room.  It’s a nice guest room.  We have the kids’ playstation there, the pullup bar from which my kids swing, the freestanding TV, etc.; it’s a great room in which one can decompress from the agonies of making money online or dealing with Latin verbiage or tackling Continental math and the like.

Well!  Two days, ago, Honorable Daughter 1 came to me to inform me:

Mom!  The guest room smells!  I can’t stay there with my friend (we had one of her good friends staying over).

Notice how the statement WASN’T:

Jeepers Mom, I see my siblings and I caused the guest room to resemble a melted wasteland complete with air-dried chocolates, yogurt and unintentifiable sticky objects!  Let me gather the troops together and fix the problem!

Obviously, Honorable Daughter 1 realized that I’d have a complete and total heart attack if she was that thoughtful.

Fast-forward to this morning. This morning, I awakened at 4:10am to another note thoughtfully placed on my keyboard which read:

Mom!  The room STILL smells!

See Mom.

  See Mom count to three.

      See Mom implode!  Wheeeee!

Keep in mind this was 4:15am.

So!  Mom (ie, yours truly), walked into the guest room to discover a barren urban war zone, complete with (I kid you not) a hobby-horse stick sticking out of the brand new shiny hole that appeared in the wall.

Needless to say, Mom was NOT a happy camper.

Which brings me to this post.

I adore my kids.  I really do!  However, I am my children’s mom – I am NOT their peer, I am NOT their pal, I am NOT their friend.  I am their MOM.  And as their mom, I choose not to ASK for certain behaviors, but instead to DEMAND them.

To wit:

• Thou Shalt Realize:  Mom is Mom.  She is not a servant nor a slave.
• Thou Shalt Realize:  Thou liveth in a darned nice house.  Thou shalt not treat it like a junkyard.
• Thou Shalt Realize:  YOU need Mom.  Mom does NOT need you.

As you’re probably aware by now, one thing about which I’m most insane is being taken for granted, either by friends or family or kids or what have you.  I can easily chop away any emotional entanglement and freeze out anyone from my life if I perceive I am not valued.

I am a gift!  I am not someone you can treat pathetically and still expect me to be around.  That goes for being a parent as well as being a friend.

Thus….I’ve told my kids I am officially on strike.  They can handle their laundry, their rooms, their meals, etc.; I refuse to engage them for the forseeable future.  I explained to them if they choose not to appreciate me as their mom, they’re quite welcome to go and live elsewhere and not to let the door hit them on the way out.

Needless to say, my kids are quite unhappy at the moment and pondering on their consequences of their behavior. 

I’ll probably return back to being Mom tomorrow or so (I’ve even told them they’re not going to karate this afternoon; I want to be by myself).   But for now….they can talk things out with Dad and reflect on how much fun life is in my household when I’m NOT emotionally available.  If they choose not to care about Mom’s feelings, Mom can easily return that…multiplied by 76.

Parenting…it’s truely a hero’s journey!!

So.  Let’s bring this post back to the most important person around….you!

Are you a parent?  If so, do you accept lousy behavior from your kids and excuse it with "They’re still young yet" or "They’ll grow out of it" or (the worse!) "I can’t discipline them because it might damage their frail egos!"

If so, point blank, you’re setting yourself up for more future pain than rolling naked on the official assembly line of rusted thumbtacks does.

Children need boundaries and they need to know when they’ve trangressed any rule that is important to you.  Of course, you should also give them the courtesy of listening to their angsts whenever they feel mis-understood – that’s simply good family dynamics.

But remember: YOU are the parent, THEY are not.  It’s your home, it’s your rules.  Period, end of statement.   You deserve politeness and good manners and NOT to be taken for granted.

And should your kids make the poor choice of challenging their boundaries, do NOT fall back and give in.  They need to know you ARE serious and you WILL follow through on consequences.

Nip it NOW in the bud….and chances are, the teenage angst will be far more endurable as the years go on.  And that of course…is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Want some other useful Parenting Bill of Rights?  Check out:

• 1) Unsolicited parenting advice shall not be offered to parents of small children.
• 2) Childcare providers shall not claim to have seen a major milestone prior to it being witnessed by one, but preferably both, parents.
• 3) No one person, without the express written consent of a child’s parent, shall introduce that child to any or all of the following: Elmo, Barney the Purple Dinosaur or the Teletubbies.
• 4) All parents shall use their kids as an excuse for not doing something they don’t want to do at least one time per week but not more than five times a week for fear of sounding inept.
• 5) All parents with children under the age of one may claim sleep deprivation as a valid excuse for just about anything, including but not limited to, falling asleep at work, wearing one grey sock and one black sock, forgetting your cup of coffee on the car roof, and just plain acting dumb….MORE….

and

• We, as parents, have a right to be treated with respect.
• We have the right to say no and not feel guilty.
• We have the right to know where our kids are, who their friends are, and who they are with at any time.
• We have the right to demonstrate we care by occasionally verifying or spot checking our children’s whereabouts. We may, for example, call host parents on parties or overnight stays.
• We have the right to set a curfew and enforce it with restrictions and loss of privileges.
• We have the right not to condone any alcohol or drug usage and to say no to attendance at activities where alcohol or drug usage may occur.
• We have the right to make mistakes and/or change our minds.
• We have the right to ask questions and expect answers about all things which may affect our children….MORE….

What a day.  Sigh.  At least this evening I’ll be able to indulge in adult karate sparring, and ask the nice 5th degree black belt to pummel me into the ground; going full out is a great stress reducer. 

I think I deserve the break.  What do you think?

Enjoy!

Barbara Ling

ps – parenting requires great self-esteem.  Have you seen:

Fatal error: Class ‘expKrc’ not found in /home/lingling/domains/php/eBay_cls.php on line 161

Related posts:

1. Today’s Thought to Share – When carpets attack
2. On Levitating A Bunk Bed for Camp Ling
3. Squelching Unquenchable Rage
4. Are you painfully enduring wisdom?
5. On Dealing With Really Vile Children and Adults and Relationships