a mother's day rant

so today . . . is mother's day eve. but you will probably be reading this on mother's day--unless you are too busy celebrating . . .

i am going to write a proper mother's day blog tomorrow, but tonight i just wanted to take a minute to say that i have the best mom! she didn't try to be my friend when i was growing up--she was my mom! we enjoyed being together, i think, but she made sound decisions about what was best for me without worrying if i was going to be happy about it or not. she was the mom! she didn't try to be my best friend--that wasn't her job. she made me dust the house and clean my room. she didn't let me ride my bike to the mall (she knew i would fall over and get hit by a car--i'm not a very good bike rider. but my friends were going . . . ) she wouldn't let me watch m*a*s*h*. i'm sure there were times when she would have liked to wimp out and just be my friend. but she didn't. because she was the mom. and she was a good one.

i look around me today, and i realize that quality is lacking in alot of families. parents are so worried that their kids will get mad or be upset, that they wimp out. i see it every morning at school when parents are bribing their preschoolers with toys and snacks to get them to stay at school. i mean really? if i hear one more parent of a four year old say, "but they won't let me . . . " there may be casualties. seriously. i see it at the mall when pre-teens pitch a fit to get what they want until their parents finally give in--which really only postpones the battle, because just wait until your ten-year-old tries to wear that outfit out of the house . . . i see it in college age kids who take advantage of their parents generosity without a second thought.

it isn't always fun to be the mom.

but . . .

there comes a day when it is. that day when your child realizes all that you have done for them, and the sacrifices you have made for them, and how the times you said no really were for their good. because you love them more than anyone else ever will. and they look at you with adult eyes, and they finally get it.

and THAT is the day that you finally get to be their friend.

so thanks, mom, for saying no when you had to, saying yes when you could, and always, always looking out for what was best for me--whether i knew it or not!

i'm glad that you were the mom when you needed to be, so that now you can be my friend.

i love you. lots.

kids are more aware than you might think . . .

so today . . . at dinner i was telling rollie and diandra about a blog i had read that made me laugh. it was written by a young woman who was raised in a household with very involved parents. very involved. and it made me laugh, because i could see a little bit of myself in her parents . . .

when diandra was growing up, we pretty much had to approve anything she was going to see or do or have. she missed more than one birthday party because of the planned activities. i wouldn't let her have barbies, or even play with them, until she was in the first grade. and even then i thought it was too early, but there were circumstances . . . and clothes shopping was no picnic either, because my ten year old was not going to dress like she was 16!

today at school one of my kindergarteners was talking about the movie 2012. she saw it over the weekend. 2012! it is about the end of the world, and california falls into the ocean! and in case you don't know, we live in california!! i'm too scared to go see it, but there i was, listening to a six year old tell me all about it.

i think sometimes parents are not aware of how much their small children are soaking up from the things they are exposed to. i think they think their children are too young to understand, and so what they see or hear doesn't matter. but it does. i see this most often when i hear my kids absentmindedly singing to themselves--some of they lyrics they sing are shocking!

one day i heard a little boy singing, "i wear sneakers, i wear tshirts . . . " over and over and over again. that was the only line he sang, but he sang it all morning. when it finally sank into my brain, i realized that it sounded like the warped lyrics of a taylor swift song. her lyrics are not obscene or objectionable, but after listening to her music (which i admit i like,) i think her target audience is probably young women--which this little boy obviously was not. so i said to him, "where did you learn that song?" and he replied, "in my dad's car." his dad's car?!?! i know his dad, and this does not seem like it would be his music of choice. but clearly this little boy had heard it often enough to get the melody right, and the lyrics were close enough that i recognized it. so now i picture him and his dad boppin' out to taylor swift songs on the way to school. and i admit it--i laugh. it is a pretty funny picture . . .

diandra says that she is glad we were careful about what was allowed into her developing brain. yeah, she says that NOW. i am pretty sure she didn't always appreciate it when she was growing up. but it warms my heart, as her mom, to hear her tell her teens that they need to be careful what movies they watch or what music they listen to, because all the stuff going into their heads has an effect on who they are and how they think about things. and even though her standards are a bit broader than the ones imposed on her when she was 15, she has been known to get up and walk out of a movie or refuse to watch a dvd if she thought the content was not going to be good.

i like that. it makes me proud that i was a somewhat restrictive parent. kids are sponges, and as the adults in their lives, we need to pay attention to what we are allowing them to soak up . . .

. . . even if it means saying no.