Concerning my irritated young son, L'Empress wrote:
By the time a kid is high school age, he shouldn't be depending on others -- ESPECIALLY parents -- to entertain him. Bicycle? Roller skates? Shank's mare? Or sit home and sulk. l'empress | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 1:07 pm
And then her daughter commented:
L'Empress seldom if ever gave us a ride. there was a bus to take us to new haven two blocks away. everything else, we walked. (back then, i had nice legs!) L'Empress's UD | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 1:36 am |
I am not offended by either of these comments but I'd like to clarify some things.
In fairness to Youngest Son, he entertains himself and gets around quite well. He has a number of friends who already drive, who are more than willing to come pick him up. Except there are only a few who have my approval and YS respects that. He also doesn't like to get into any situation where he cannot leave, immediately. He walks downtown (3 miles) on a regular basis and runs and plays baseball for exercise. He's not a lump. He was especially low this past week because he had been sick with a pre-migrane sickness for nearly four days and he and his girlfriend couldn't coordinate schedules until late Sunday. He did tons of homework, worked on his computer, played games and watched tv over the weekend. He also made two desserts, played outside with the dogs, went out to eat with his brother and visited with neighborhood friends. He was just bummed because his father and I were hardly around and he didn't get any quality driving time in (he has his permit).
On the other hand, I have always been available to both my boys. This is one of the main reasons I have been a stay at home mom. I didn't let them walk anywhere without me until I felt sure it was safe. I want to be there for my kids. Trust me, they are independent. I don't think wanting to hang with your parents once in a while (especially when there could be a meal, a movie ticket or new teeshirt purchased) is a bad thing. At all. I like to do things for and with my kids and their friends. I was that always-present classroom volunteer, PTO secretary and events coordinator, elementary school newsletter creator, field trip volunteer, team mom for too many years, track captain's mom, baseball league secretary and president. I like being involved. This allows me to know the adults my children are exposed to and I get to know the kids, even when they don't know I'm watching. I think this is part of what makes me a good parent.
Since the boys could understand I have always told them, "God gave you to me so I could be here for you. You are never alone in any situation and you never have to go through something by yourself. You were God's greatest gift to me."
I know I am flip and sometimes bitchy with my words about my boys but truly there is nothing that is more important to me than being their mom. Nothing.
And, by and by, what the heck is Shank's mare?!
On a completely different subject: how many of you have a MySpace site? I have a couple of every day life friends who have them and they've been bugging me to create one. Why? Do you blog? Can you IM? I'm not getting the attractiveness but haven't done any real investigation yet. Oldest Son had an account there but he never kept up and eventually deleted it. I would definitely make it clear I am married, yada yada yada, so there would be no trouble that way. So what do you think, is it worth the effort?