Having eight kids is easy. Simple really. It is the living with them and raising them to be upstanding citizens that is the hard part. I mean labor pain is fleeting but the pain of seeing your kid on “America’s Most Wanted” is forever.
My oldest daughter…. the creative one.
Not that I have seen them there, I mean. Both of my adult children are pretty upstanding and the younger ones are still scared of me. I was concerned about Chris for awhile there in his teens but he straightened up o.k. and is currently in the Air Force. The main theme of today’s rambling is: It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
I think that as parents we get focused in on every little thing our kids do. My oldest daughter, Erin, cut her hair when she was six. I took her to a psychiatrist because I thought she had unresolved hatred issues toward me. It wasn’t true. She had an unresolved pair of scissors in her hot little hands and a lack of adult supervision.
Fast forward a number of years. Another girl-child cuts her hair. Do I take her to a psychiatrist? No, I even it up and finish cooking dinner. Simple really. The difference isn’t in the situations or the children, it is in my response to it. You have to figure that you are going ot over react to everything your first child does and underreact to everything your last child does. It is the Way of the Parent. My older kids love to remind me how hard I was on them compared to how easy I am on their younger siblings. ‘Tis true. As much as I don’t want to admit it I am older, more mellow, and being a single mom with 6 kids at home I am sadly out numbered.
If ya can’t beat them join them.
I don’t have all the answers to life’s parenting problems but one thing I know. It is better to choose you battles carefully than try to discipline for something that your kid is going to outgrow in a year anyway. Things that will bring the wrath of Mom on your head at our house include anything that has to do with character or ethics:
- lying
- meanness
- stealing
Things that I don’t worry about are things like Nick not wanting to wear shoes in the winter or Shiloh wanting to dye her long, gorgeous hair…. bright blue. These things are stages or part of the personality of the child. I don’t need to make a discipline issue out of it. It is my choice and I choose to make it easy.
I have found that my kids eventually grow up, turn into responsible adults, and are too hard on their own kids. It is the Way of the Parent, Grasshopper. See the creative 20-something in the picture? She is awesome. And her kids are too.
image: from the collection of Marye Audet
Post from: Blisstree