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You’ve conjured the memory of my Great Aunt Rose. She was this little barrel-shaped old Jewish woman who wore gigantic orthopedic shoes with her flower print dress and big ol’ strand of beads and eye-glasses on a chain, and she would look at you across the table and lean forward, touch your forearm, and emphasize the gesture with the words, “You’re a tough cookie, Megan.” You are a tough cookie.
If I did not have my sons’ father around, I would go nuts. I would not know what to do. My husband is not an athletic or handy person, so he doesn’t teach those skills, but he is the one to drive them around to their appointments and games and friends’ houses. I would fail at that. I’m glad if I remember to sign the field-trip permission slips and scrounge up some cash for them.
But I do come from a cultural tradition that places an extremely high value on education and the development of critical thinking skills, so if there is homework stuff going on, I am all over it. I can’t not be, but if I weren’t, I would feel terrible. I am procrastinating on college scholarship research [shudder.] But as they say, “a Jewish drop-out is a kid with a master’s degree.” I only have a B.A., so what does that make me? But still. We read. We discuss.
But everyone does what is familiar, gleaned from the best of whatever we have received ourselves. And my Great Aunt Rose? She wanted to go to college for her entire life, and finally enrolled in philosophy program when she was 84 years old. Lived to be 103. Got a master’s degree. Then she said she was too burned out to go for the Ph.D. Slacker!
You are right about not over-promising on the money-per-page deal with Thing #2. But I asked him about it and he said no. He might change his mind. Then we talk about parameters.
My own “respect for authority” is limited to that which stems from superior knowledge, skill, or ethical behavior – what I think of as “natural” authority rather than status-based. Some families organize around a clear hierarchy based on position, and I find that baffling, maybe because it doesn’t allow for the question “Why?” The notion that rules are rules just doesn’t work for me. They have to be inherently logical, not just consistently applied.
I do struggle to say the word “No.” I am a bit of a doormat. My sons are frequently quite obnoxious to me, but I figure that is part of their job, moving from dependence to independence, to engage in some acts of irreverence. I would like to be more assertive. And it really ticks me off when my ADHD-er monkey starts pushing me around physically. That is not cool, but it is difficult to make him listen, to make him hear me, and to get him to stop. And that can be scary.
Other parents often set limits that I can’t relate to. This doesn’t mean they are wrong, but might mean they place a greater emphasis on values that differ from my own. Some examples: You’re grounded because you used your step-mother’s bath towel. You’re grounded because you spent your birthday with your friends when you were supposed to be at home visiting with relatives. You can’t go on your play date because you drew on the wall with magic marker, and it’s your fault if your friend is disappointed. Those are not decisions I would make, but there was one time when a friend of mine confiscated his son’s car keys for a couple of weeks because the kid was higher than a kite, and I thought that made great sense. His goal was to protect the clueless one from causing harm to self or others. It was not about “you have to do what I say because I’m your father and I said so.” The consequence was logically connected to the behavior.
My kid who spends half his time with two other families? Those families are the nice, white-collar, well-educated, professional types I was probably supposed to be. I trust them completely. The kid with ADHD doesn’t have much of a social life, and I am almost relieved, in that if he did, he would fall in with “the wrong crowd” due to his vulnerability. I’m convinced that kids with ADHD, and adults with ADHD – all of us, really – we need to choose our environments far more carefully than others do.
Yeah, I’ve learned a lot of boy-slang around here. Epic. Awesome. Dude. Bad-ass. Owned. Oh snap! When I was a kid, only guys were dudes, but now apparently anyone can be a dude.
I know what you mean about that whole negative self-talk super-powered destructo-tape running on and on. I understand that voice is not my friend. It is still there, but I’m getting better at ignoring it.
For a while I tried to read parenting books, but most of them were boring and/or I didn’t agree with them and/or thought they were stupid and/or they annoyed me, so I don’t read those books any more. Especially the ones that propose a system. People are not math.
But I really appreciate what you have to say. So thank you for that.
Um [shuffles feet, hangs head]. Yeah. Thanks.
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