Parenting is a daily work in progress. It isn't easy. It is the hardest job in the world and one of the most rewarding. I have been at it for 21 years now and I still wonder sometimes if I make the right decisions about things.
I have decided to live by the rule that some things just aren't worth the fight. If the dishwasher doesn't get unloaded at night, then I will do it in the morning and not make a big deal about it. If a bedroom is a mess, as long as it isn't a hazardous mess for everyone in the house, I don't have to live in there and if that's the way they want to live, so be it. It has taken me a long time to get to this point. It has been a long tunnel to get through, but I finally see the light.
I listen to parents talk about how their kids don't want them to volunteer at their school or be around them because they will embarrass them...yeah, we probably will embarrass you, but you don't have a choice. This is something I think my kids learned early on. When Brenham started Kindergarten, I started volunteering on the days when Nicholas and David were at MDO. I was at the school doing things like making copied and delivering things to classrooms. I helped with parties. I was homeroom mom. I was there. There were days when I took Nicholas and David with me, and then when Nicholas started continued with taking David. By the time David started Kindergarten, all three boys were in the same school, so I was really spending a lot of hours volunteering. I think the secret to being at the school and not having the boys tell me I couldn't was that I didn't hover around them while I was there. If I saw them in the hall, I may or may not have said hello to them. I didn't follow them around school. They knew I was there, but they really didn't see me.
When Brenham entered middle school, I started going to the middle school to volunteer as well. I think a lot of parents think that once elementary school is over, so is the opportunity to volunteer. That is not the case at all. Middle schools and high schools need volunteers just as much as elementary schools do. I went on field trips and band trips and choir trips. I served on the PTA board and not only went to dances, I was the one organizing them. I served ice cream and made copies and eventually became a sub for the district.
When high school rolled around, I became a band mom pretty much full time. For two years I had kids in three schools on three different sides of town and I managed to be at each of them at some point during the week. By that time they knew telling me I couldn't wasn't even an option. I never had one of them ask me not to be somewhere. They knew I wouldn't listen to them anyway, so why even waste the breath?
I had hard years. The first years after my ex left to work in Virginia (we were still married then) were hard. Brenham was starting middle school and that was enough of a change without having it compounded with dad not being around. I had panic attacks and days when I didn't think I would make it. But I did. Not only did I make it, I think I did so very well. Those years when the kids are at that age when hormones take over the innocent babies we want them to stay are not fun, but there is a light at the end of that tunnel.
How do you get there? Stop being your child's best friend. Be his parent. But do so with love and respect and they will return the love and respect. Remember that some things are not worth fighting over. If it isn't going to hurt them, it isn't going to hurt to let it go.
I tell people all the time I had the strangest teenagers I have ever known. They never really fought with me. They made/make good grades. They didn't get in trouble in school. They haven't been reckless drivers. They don't run the roads at all hours. They are home before 10:00. They don't give me grief. I really don't know where they came from, but I know that the young men they are now is from hard work on all our parts. I know I probably have an outlook that is different from the way things really were, but I also know I have some pretty darn good kids.
And that light....it just gets brighter and brighter!
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