Mondays Just Got Worse
If you want to bring out the complete worst of me-give me
a night like I had last night and a morning like I had today.
Let’s start with this morning. I am now in charge of carpool
for Monday mornings kayak practices (I am still trying to figure out why my kid
has to want to do these practices three times a week or why we allow this and
have not come to any conclusions around it). So in anticipation of having to go
out in a cold car at 5:45am…I don’t sleep as of around 3:45am pee break as I
know that I have to get up anyways. So I lay there and do a mixture of what
this situation calls for in my mind: fume and half whimper.
Did I say this behavior was rational or productive? No I
did not so leave me alone.
So we venture out to the car and go pick up the other athletes
(I refer to refer to them not as teens
as anyone who would want to work out at 5:50am before school must be hoping to
go the Olympics or something right?) and we get at the kayak club and there are
no lights on but lots of other cars (lots of Olympic athletes I guess). Well we
wait 25 mins. And then we turn around and come home because:
One of the kids gts a text that “the coach isn’t coming
this morning”
Nice.
Go home and write this blog I guess
As if Mondays isn’t friggin hard enough eh? I mean I
should adore Mondays as it is the day I have “off”. Ya right. I work for myself
on Mondays and also often half a day for my “real job” plus I try and squeeze
in at least 5 hrs of domestic stuff (so literally my days begins at 6:30 and
and ends around 12am literally . Oh no I am incorrect NOW it begins at
5:30am-12am.
I am really really bitter and trying to get a hold of
myself. I am having a very hard time not showing my son what I am thinking of
all this. Bad bad Mother.
Well the bad mothering actually began late Sunday night.
After a wonderful and yummy family dinner all hell broke loose around 9:30pm
(another pathetic timing habit we seem to have in this household where we can’t
get it together to eat at normal times that make any type of sense).
It’s the girlfriend fight again and I honestly can’t take it. Chase (and Bear) but mostly
Chase as Bear knows this is a completely dead end road at his age with his
girlfriend and Chase feels there is some hope…..makes it known not subtly at
all that “we are completely crazy parents because we won’t let him have his
girlfriend here at home when we are not here”. This has been going on for
months and months now and the “discussion” never ends.
The funny part in all of this is is that I am getting
stricter and stricter with the rules as Chase pushes more and more and is ruder
and ruder about this. Likely this weekend when were downtown I just would have
allowed him to have her over since the other kids were here-but because of the
way his is acting? No Way in Hell.
It turned into the worst fight he and I have very had in
our lifetime. At the table over brownies that I never got to eat. He 100
percent lost it and so did I. I don’t even have it in me to feel sorry. He
imitated me and humiliated me and belittled me. He mad me feel as though I was
a piece of dirt. All in order to get his way. It was completely betraying to me
and I have never felt so badly and alienated from anyone. It was a horrible
experience.
And my reaction was not one of disappointment or a mature
one it was revenge and retaliation. PS: my parenting book is coming out in March
on amazon! Line up for your copies People!
I stayed up and fumed about this all night. I am still
fuming. And there is nothing parental about my reaction…I don’t want to sit him
down and talk i over. I feel like packing up my suitcase and moving to Bora Bora
(alone)(for real)
Anyways we have hit that teenage wall with our eldest
son. Finally. He is usually such a pleasure and a sport with some attitude but
now straight out disrespect and rudeness and possible rebellion. We have hit a
wall and something has to change after last night.
Now what will it be? Him? Me? His Dad? Our parenting?
I remember the best parenting coach I have ever had in
our lives –we took 3 courses on parenting with every Wednesday night for years he had also hit a wall (see there are others
out there who think they know what they are talking about who want to move to
Bora Bora too). And when he hit that wall which was far far far worse than the
one we are hitting he:
Transformed
his way of parenting and the way he ran the family.
He created a democracy. Highly religious man-not the
typical as in the Sunday church goer- but the daily worshipper wanted to be a priest
religious man. And he gave up fighting with his kids about church and pretty
much everything else and created a democracy with them. He had nine kids and I
will always remember this story. Until that moment they were all forced to go
to church on Sundays and pray daily. Most of them agreed to it until they hit
about 16 and then the problems began. His expectation was that they attended
church, youth camps and prayed nightly. They started having fights about it often
and too frequently until one of them ran away and didn’t come back for three
weeks. Became a drug dealer.See why his wall was bigger than mine?
Anyways he turned it all around within 6 months in his
family and created a democracy. And that is what he taught to the rest of us
–who clearly clearly did not hear a word. As of that day of transformation
there was no more need for the kids to go to church or do their homework at
certain times. He took away the notion that they could not go out past 11pm and
not have girls in their rooms. As a common of sorts they established as a
family what the rules of the home were for all of them-together they all
decided and together they followed these sort of rules. Some of the rules he
got his way and some he did not. It was up to the team to decide.
So what did his life with nine kids look like 6 months
later? He has 6 out of 9 kids following the same patter of church going that
they always did. Why? Because they believed in this and loved this experience. Three
decided it was not for them and often discussed their more non believing views
openly at the table with the others in a respectful way.
Boys had sex with girls before marriage and some of the
girls decided to save their virginity for their marriage partner as their
parents believed was right. Some experimented with drugs but none got hooked. And
PS-that drug dealing chaotic horrible son became a priest like his Dad had
always dreamed for him. Not because his Dad wanted him too but because he
wanted it for himself. He realized it was his own dream too.
I remember hearing this story and FREAKING out. Even as I
write it….part of me is in such awe and admiration and part of me wants to
throw up in my mouth!!!!!!!
The
ultimate act of letting go of control.
Wow.
So we are nowhere even close to having a teen homeless
and on drugs out of pure rebellion. Or nowhere even close to forcing our kids
do many daily things besides some of the more routine things. We are nowhere
even close to wanting to start a commune either where everyone decides what is
best for every one and we all live as equals. Nope
(this is the same man who planned a trip to Disney and
had saved up for years for nine kids to travel for two weeks on one teachers salary
and then because one 9 yr. old broke the rules of the common and had sibling fights
in the car they turned around and cancelled the trip after planning it for
three years and driving 14 hrs)
But I do..see the point (I hate hare hate to admit it)
So this Monday at 4am I started thinking about what this
transformation might look like for this own family of ours? Sometimes crisis
(such as we had last night) brings on creativity. (Interesting that this was
one of the title of a book my dad wrote (Crisis and Creativity) Sending me a
message are we Dad?
Anyways I saw from the discussion we had last night
something will need to change. We are at the teenage door and we are either
going to open it or close it. Build on the relationship or shut it down to some
degree. Be authoritarian or be democratic.
We have been very lucky so far with our teens. More than
lucky-very deliberate and strategic and decisive. And so far our kids are gems.But
I see our lucky streak will soon run out if we don’t question our next moves.I
am not certain anymore we will be able to maintain these gems with our current
model of parenting.
I am very very curious to see what we will do next. And
very very looking forward to writing a book about it one day. Because knowing
us? It will be Big.
And after writing this post at 6 am on Monday-I am not
sure anymore if kayak practice is a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe this extra
couple hours of reflection forced onto me will be the best thing I have ever
done.
And maybe? It won’t.
I am anxious to see after the year I have had and next
week being the end of intensive therapy of 2014…what my next move will be.
I might surprise myself. and hoping I can control myself from buying a one way ticket to a far off place.
