tonight was the night June 24, 2010

The straw broke the grandfather camel’s back.

And tonight I had to bite my tongue and my husband had to walk away to fold laundry upstairs (!).

{I wrote this post last night, but didn’t publish because something about it didn’t feel right. So I saved it, and thought about it for the night and realized why publishing it didn’t feel ok. When I started this blog the intent of it was to write about my parenting styles and my parenting mistakes, no one else’s. So, while I was only writing about family, I was writing about how another person (my father) parents – and that is where the discomfort came in. So now I will just write about how the evening affected me as a parent.}

The entire evening overall was fine, but it was clear that my father’s patience for being around young children had reached its limit and instead of letting my husband and I do our thing with them, he had to punctuate the evening with his beliefs placed upon the heads of my children. Now, I’ve said it before – I’m an authoritarian, and well, I didn’t stumble upon that style of parenting on my own. It is the way I was raised. It’s AMAZING how those parenting techniques instantly took me back to when I was a child and instantly reminded me how they made me feel to be spoken to in that way.

As I said, I bit my tongue, because I knew that nothing that came out of my mouth would have been said with any kindness or diplomacy. So, better not say it at all. I wish I had the capability of saying something that didn’t come from the depths of my anger – that probably is a lifetimes worth – but I don’t, so I didn’t. For better or worse. Clearly something I need to work on, practice, what ever it takes, because I can’t ignore it forever.

In a way I guess I should be grateful for these little reminders from him, because it does confirm for me that for all the mistakes I make as a parent, I am at least trying to raise my children in way that doesn’t make them feel like they are useless little imps that shouldn’t really attempt to think for themselves.

I wish I had walked away May 5, 2010

I didn’t, but oh boy, I should have.

It’s been a long day. Not sure what the mojo is, but it’s been a long one. Last night on MomTV Vicki talked about Authoritarian parenting styles – and she may have well has been talking about me. So you think after hearing all that she had to say last night I’d be tuned in, aware of how things go for me when I am not parenting from my best. You’d think that that’s what would have happened. But it didn’t.

Which one should I start with? The time when my son called me an idiot or the time when I over heard Thor saying to his sister “put your face in my wiener” and then came around the corner and saw him shoving her face in his crotch. OK, let’s start with the latter. I have to admit that just hearing the word “wiener” sets me off. We have been sexually open in raising our kids – never used the cutesy words like “hoo-hoo” or “wee-wee”. Penis. Vagina. That’s it, those are the words. So when I hear “wiener” it sets me off. So truthfully, I wasn’t even expecting to see him actually forcing her face in his crotch – that word alone was enough – but then, oh yes he is actually doing it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Any reasonable thought about the fact that they are just two little kids who have no idea the sexual connotation for that act went flying out the window and I went right into the future where my daughter (or son for that matter) is being sexually abused and I went over the top into lecture mode. I actually think I tried to walk away a couple of times, but then I went back in for more. I really wanted him to know that this was completely unacceptable. Why wasn’t someone around to tell me that I was being completely unacceptable??

And all this was preceded with him calling me an idiot when he asked if he could play with my iPod and I said “yes, as soon as you show me that you will hold up your end of our agreements”. He had earlier in the day asked to play with my iPod and I said yes, and we agreed on a time – where “the big hand would be” when that time was up. And when that time came and went he kept on going and did so until I said we needed to leave to do some errands. So, when he got the as soon as he said “if you give me your iPod, I’ll show you really quickly that I’ll stop when you say it’s time”. I told him that it doesn’t work that way and that if he wanted to play with my iPod he needed to think of some ways that didn’t involve the iPod that he could show me that he would hold up his end of our agreements for the next 5 days. He went ballistic, and dropped the i-bomb on me at the dinner table (where he had brought his ugly mood). And then this all spiraled down into the funkiest of evenings when Talula picked up on his mood and actually started pestering him in a way I had never seen. She started following him everywhere and it was making him crazy, and that in turn made her do it more, and well you know the rest. I was at a loss for how to move it forward in a productive way. I heard Vicki say the words “children follow those people moving forward”; but I was at a complete loss. My gut told me that there was no way some child that calls me an idiot should be chauffeured to t-ball practice, but in the mood we were all in I had no idea how to approach that without it becoming a punishment. So, I used it as an opportunity for  a do-over and off we went. Thor of course arrived with out his bat & glove, which was of course, my fault. They had a good enough time at t-ball, but then, well, wiener happened and everyone feels like crap again.

Ok. I wrote this last night and just couldn’t bring myself to hit publish. It’s a new day, I have just about forgiven myself and I got a fantastic hug from Thor this moring. So, onwards.