Is It So Wrong?

Is it wrong for a mom to call her kids assholes? Because that’s how I felt about them last night: that they were assholes.

I know I’m not supposed to say such awful things about my children. I know I’m supposed to look at them the way my dear husband does: with loving, unconditionally accepting eyes. His vision is so flawed he actually thinks they are hilarious when they throw a fit or talk back. (They aren’t.)

Of course, it’s easy for him to be so tolerant. He’s only with them on weekends. During the week, I am the lone parent.

As a result, they have become jerks.

I know. It’s wrong. I should really stop calling them names. But what else do you call kids who refuse to listen even when you’ve remained steadfast in your position? What else do you call little tykes who misbehave in public and loudly proclaim, “You’re the worst Mommy!” after you’ve spent the day taking them to school, playing with them for an hour, feeding them, and also driving them to their events? What would you call a child who, while you were on the phone, decided to jump up and down on the living room furniture when you have made it CRYSTAL-effing-CLEAR that such activity is verboten?

I would call them assholes.

Getting Away With It

Lily came home the other day and tossed her backpack on the table. I leafed through her homework the way I do every afternoon and stopped when I came upon something I hadn’t seen before. Two of her assignments from the previous day were only half finished. Her teacher had written, “Please complete by tomorrow.”

“What’s this?” I asked, holding the paper up.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, glancing away.

“No,” I said calmly, “it’s something. Tell me what’s going on.”

She shrugged. “Mrs. S said I could just finish it by tomorrow,” she said. She didn’t look at me when she spoke.

Several weeks ago I had e-mailed Lily’s teacher and asked if I should be doing homework with her. I asked because when I did I thought I was giving Lily an easy way out. She would quickly finish and I would examine her results, asking her to fix the ones that were wrong. I wondered how doing so was helping her. (Click here to read my post on that subject.) My instincts were right and her teacher asked me not to go over the homework so she would have a better assessment of Lily’s strengths and weaknesses.

Up until now this system has worked fine. I always ask Lily if she completed her work and she always said, “Yes.” For some reason, she got lazy.

When I saw the incomplete homework I explained to Lily how disappointed I was. “If you try your hardest and fail, that’s totally fine with me,” I said. “But not trying and failing? That is never acceptable.”

I also made it clear that homework is not a choice, it’s a must. I expressed my surprise and said, “This isn’t the Lily I know. The Lily I know is dedicated and finishes what she started.”

She began to cry (this child was born with a wrist to her forehead and “Woe is me” tattooed invisibly on her brow). I ignored the tears and said, “Why didn’t you finish the work?”

She shrugged. “Are you mad at me, Mom?” she asked.

I paused for a moment, trying to figure out my answer. Was I angry? Not really. Was I surprised? Definitely.

“I’m confused,” I said to her. “I know you are a good student and I feel this work doesn’t show your best effort.”

Tears fell down her cheeks and she nodded. I asked her to go and wash up, have a snack and do her homework.

That night she showed me that she had finished her work. I saw that one she needed to complete was still not 100 percent done. “Are you sure you have done everything?” I asked.

She looked at the paper and said, “Yeah.”

I eyed her. “Really?” I asked.

“Well, maybe not,” she said, taking the paper from me.

This is the hard part about growing up with a strong-willed child, especially one that is different from her equally, if not more-so, strong-willed sister. I cannot tell if her defiance is to test me or if it’s because she just doesn’t want to do the work.

“Maybe it’s too hard for her,” my husband said.

“No, that’s not it,” I said. “If anything, it’s too easy for her.”

“Well, maybe that’s the problem,” he said.

I shrugged. “Who knows?” I asked. “I’m at a loss here.”

Luckily I called my therapist and made an appointment (I see her every few months or so for a mental tune-up).

“Some kids will just try to see what they can get away with,” she said to me. She must have seen the look of horror on my face because she added, “And that is no indication of what kind of child he or she will turn out to be.”

Before bed on the night Lily didn’t finish her homework I spoke to her about it again. I didn't go into detail but let her know how I felt. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be sorry," I said. "Be better. The only person you are hurting when you don't finish is yourself."

The next day she came home with three new assignments. On one page I saw she had written, “Turn over!” I didn’t say anything about her handwritten note and went to do some work. That night she sat quietly and completed her assignments. “Look, Mommy,” she said, holding up the paper. “I wrote ‘turn over’ on here so I wouldn’t forget to do the other side.”

I smiled and said, “What a good idea! Did it work?”

“Yep,” she said. “See?” She held up the paper to show me she had done both sides.

“Good for you,” I said. “You must be proud.”

“I am,” she said.

Mission accomplished.

Photo by Vince Petaccio, courtesy of stock.xchng

How?

How can you wear your underwear backwards – all day long?

How can you walk around with chocolate syrup and other pieces of food stuck on your face for hours and not notice?

How can you not feel that snot hanging in your nose?

How can you go to the bathroom and not wipe yourself, but also insist on wearing new pajamas each night because it would “be gross” to wear them twice? (Seriously. How?)

How can you wipe your crusty boogers all over our house and think that’s okay?

How can you be 7 years old and still leave crumbs all around you when you eat?

How can you wear a bright orange tie-dye shirt with rainbow-striped pants and think that’s a hot-looking outfit?

How can you always want to be fancy?

How can you have this incredibly thick, gorgeous hair and insist on wearing it only in a ponytail or a bun?

How can you make friends with the meanest girls and not realize when they are acting like total jerks?

How can you be so effing lazy sometimes?

How can you wake up in a great mood every morning?

How can you wake up in a bad mood most mornings?

How can you ask so many questions?

How can you both be so different yet love each other so much?

How can you want even more stuffed animals, dolls, figures and other stupid toys that I cannot understand?

How can you still be testing me when I have remained steadfast your entire life?

How can you still be waking up at 6:30 a.m.?

How did I luck out and get two funny, kind-hearted, smart and beautiful girls?

This post is dedicated to Bad Mommy Moments who is moving on to bigger and better things (congrats again, CK!).

Please feel free to add your own list of how's by posting a comment.

Teaching Empathy

One of the hardest parts I find about being a mom is the lack of empathy I get from my children. When I had my surgery they understood I wasn’t feeling well but after a day or two they wondered why I wouldn’t get off my lazy ass and fix them something to eat. As soon as I was up and around, they acted out (Aimee tried to punch me on my wounded breast) and I found myself saying, “Guys, I’m hurt! I have a really big owie!”

Their response? “Oh.”

I saw the future and wondered if I’d be like Jeffrey Dahmer’s mom, shaking my head and saying, “I tried. I tried to teach them to be empathetic. They just wouldn’t listen.”

But then, two times in the past month, Lily surprised me.

“Mom,” she said to me one morning at breakfast, “the book ‘The Berenstain Bears Lose A Friend’ makes me cry.”

“It does?” I asked. “Why?”

She glanced down and shook her head. “I don’t want to tell you,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked. “You can tell me anything.”

“No,” she said. She looked up and her eyes were moist. “I don’t want to cry.”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe you can show it to me later.”

She nodded. Later that night she brought me the book to read. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m not going to cry.”

I read her the story. In it, Sister Bear has a goldfish that she loves and cares for. But one day the goldfish dies. The crafty parents try to hoodwink their child by buying another goldfish but Sister Bear figures it out and gets really upset.

(Side note: I need to say something here. Have you ever read The Berenstain Bears? Their kids are named Brother Bear and Sister Bear. What, the author couldn’t think of better names?)

I read the story and Lily began to weep when she saw the dead fish floating on the top of the bowl.

“Are you upset because you’re worried about Red?” I asked, meaning the Betta Fish she has that refuses to die.

She nodded. Mind you, she has not looked at Red in months and almost never asks about him.

I asked what she thought about the parents lying to their child. “They didn’t want her to be upset,” she said.

I explained that even if a person is worried about how someone would react they should never lie. “I would have been even more upset if someone lied to me,” I said. “Just like Sister Bear was.

A few weeks later Lily tried to tell me about another book she read. This time she could barely get the words out she was so upset. The story in question? "Curious George Takes A Job."

In between choking back tears she told me how the story made her upset because George falls and breaks his leg. She begins to cry so hard she has to come to me for a hug.

“Do you want to see it?” she asks.

“Sure,” I said gently.

She picks up the book and turns to the offending page. George is sitting down. His leg is broken. Tears are streaming down his face.

“Aw, he's crying,” I said. I look up. Lily is bawling.

I grab her and hug and kiss her. “Lily, you have a very kind heart,” I said. “Please don’t ever change. It’s your best quality.”

I told this story to my friend Deborah who said, “That is so sweet.” Then she added, “You know, so often my kids drive me crazy. So when moments like that happen, I try to hold onto them for a long time because those are the moments that make being a parent so awesome.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I always wondered when my girls would become more empathetic and I now know it is a cognitive development that happens around 8 or 9 years of age (Lily will be 8 years old in February.) By constantly reinforcing this behavior (i.e., saying to them, "Wasn't that kind of Johnny to give you his last cookie?"), children will develop a keen sense of empathy when their minds mature.

To learn more about teaching your child empathy, click here, click here and click here.

Photo by Christa Richer, courtesy of stock.xchng

Culture Gap, Now & Then

Imagine having parents who grew up in another country. Picture having a mom and dad with accents so pronounced you sometimes had to explain to your friends what they had just said (and being mortified while you did that). Envision asking when it was all right to go on a date and hearing a silence so deafening you had to leave the room.

Can you see yourself in that life? Then you’d know what it was like to be me.

Being the child of immigrants – worse, immigrants with a minority religion and culture – was really tough on me growing up. They did their best to raise me as an American but the Egyptian in them always seeped through.

And I was completely embarrassed by it.

Thankfully the United States today is a much bigger melting pot than it was 40 years ago. I am not the only one whose parents immigrated here (and have friends my age who are immigrants). I am no longer horrified by my mom and dad’s ethnicity and, in fact, am proud of who I am and where my family originated. (Egypt? Who could be embarrassed by all that history? The Pyramids? The Sphinx? Hieroglyphics? Mummies? The list goes on and on.)

However, I am still torn between two cultures. Let’s take dating, for instance. I was never allowed to date. I was told I could go out with groups of boys and girls (which I did) but was not allowed to go one-on-one with a boy to a movie or to a party. My parents were fearful; they didn’t want me to become sexually active and rather than sit down and talk about it they either ignored my developing body or got upset when a boy called our house. I had no boundaries and I had no idea how to navigate through puberty. (That was fun.)

According to this article from The Wall Street Journal, it is a miracle I met and married a good man. According to the story, parents should get involved in their kids’ budding romances early in order for them to make wise choices later on. To paraphrase, parents should be a sounding board and offer advice when necessary without being judgmental (that’s the key – keep your pie hole shut while the kid is talking). Read the article – the basis for talking to your kids about puppy love is really a solid basis for parenting in general. (Click here to read it in its entirety.)

My problem is I don’t believe teenagers should have boyfriends or girlfriends. I know that may sound insane after all I went through with my own parents, but hear me out. What age is appropriate? Twelve? Fourteen? Sixteen? Kids that age are really young. They should not be tying themselves to one person. If I had married the person I met in high school I would have been divorced a year later. Hell, if I married the guy I dated when I was 21 I would have also been divorced a year later. I changed so much in my 20s I needed that time alone to figure out who I was and what I wanted in my life. I dated, but never seriously. And that’s what I think people should do. I think no one should have one boyfriend or one girlfriend until they are ready to settle down. (Click here, click here, click here, click here, click here, click here and click here to read previous posts on talking to your kids about sex and sexual education.)

Teenagers are not ready to settle down.

Consider this: I have three friends who are currently single (all in their 40s). All three are what I refer to as serial monogamists. They have had either a boyfriend or girlfriend their whole lives (not the same one – they date these people for years at a time). They wasted a lot of time with people they knew they weren’t going to marry because it was either convenient to have a significant other or because they were scared to be alone. As a result they never went out and found the person who should have been their partner.

So what am I going to do when my kids want to start dating? (Or, rather, what are my husband and I going to do?)

I’m going to take the advice offered by the article and talk to my kids early and often. I’m going to explain how I feel about dating and sex. I’ll tell them about my experiences and those of my friends and hope by doing so they will make good choices.

I can only hope.

Photo by Stephen Tainton, courtesy of stock.xchng