Before I stopped working, my kid and I had a pretty solid routine going on. He'd be in morning daycare, then go to kindergarten, where I'd pick him up. We'd hang out playing whatever weirdo game he'd made up that week for a while, then he'd watch some cartoons while I cleaned or did whatever, we'd pick up Nik, have dinner, and BAM - bedtime. But now that I'm home, oh, ALL THE FREAKING TIME, we had to make some adjustments to our schedule, and as a result, I've learned a few things about the kid that may have been slipping through the cracks.
Namely, he's kind of a brat. In a number of ways. So these last couple weeks have been a challenge of striking up a new routine mixed in with some good old fashioned "kid training." And since everyone seems to be so damn curious about how the Stay-at-Home-Mom gig is going, I've had a couple opportunities to enumerate on the things I'm doing to whip this kid into shape. And this has resulted in me being called a "tyrant", "unfair", "unsympathetic", and one of my friends actually laid down the "bad parent" card. So, since I happen to know that the blogging world is always ready to jump right on these bandwagons, I figured I'd give you all a chance to tell me these things, too. Or. You know. I'm just seriously running out of content. But really, my mom has told me that I "fucking suck" at this stuff, (take that for what you will if you've read between the lines of what kind of parent my mom was) so if you want to tell me that, too, I won't even delete your comment! So here goes a list of new things I'm doing, and things I've always done that have earned me the "bad parent" label.
1. I "lock him in his room." (What you see in quotations is what I've been told from friends and family.)
Do I physically shove him in there and lock his door? Jeez, dude, of course not. He doesn't even have a lock due to an incident occurring the first few days after we moved in where he managed to lock us all out of his bedroom. But do I make him stay in there for up to an hour and a half each day? Yes, yes I certainly do, and he doesn't even have to do anything wrong for it! (Aside, I don't do the room thing as a discipline method anyway. Dude, there are toys in there. How much of a lesson are you teaching pushing your kid into a room with toys?) One of the things that shocked me the most about him when I started staying home was dude...you...do not know how to use your imagination AT ALL. The child was apparently physically incapable of entertaining himself. It was easy enough to figure out - he spent all day in daycare and school, where activities are carved out and scheduled for him, and then he came home and had either me or his allotted cartoon time to entertain him. Weekends were usually filled with errands and various things I scheduled for us, so he never really had any time to just..play.
When I realized this, I immediately declared that at least one hour per day would be spent in his room, where there is no TV, and I will not be in there to entertain him. At first, he thought he was being punished. I explained to him that I simply just wanted him to learn to entertain himself, or else he was going to spend his life being a bored TV robot. The first few days were hard...a lot of whining and sulking. But now? He's happy to back there, and I listen to him making up games with his action figures and building forts with his blanket. Occasionally, he decides to just hang out back there on his own when I'm not interesting enough for him.
I got BLASTED for this. Apparently, it is TOTALLY NOT OK to ask a 5 year old to be able to entertain himself. Apparently, it is BORDERLINE NEGLIGENT to leave a 5 year old alone in his kid-proof room while I am 10 feet away in the kitchen and let him run amok. Apparently, having a kid who does not need me to act like a fucking clown 24/7, including when we're in public, to keep him from having a bored, whiny meltdown is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. And apparently, I am TOTALLY OK WITH THAT.
2. I make him "choke on food he hates!"
Ah, the food saga. If you have friends with kids, have ever visited a restaurant with child patrons, or read any parenting blog on the net, you realize what a fucking trap this can be. And man, did I ever fall right into it. This problem is totally my own damn fault, and now I'm trying to fix it.
I was never a picky eater. Sure, I bitched about a few things, but I sucked it up and generally ate what was given to me. When I met my husband, he introduced me to a world of food that I'd never even imagined, and now I will at least try anything you put in front of me, as long as it doesn't contain mayonaisse. So the fact that I have a kid who is a fucking LUNATIC about food just about kills my soul, kills it right down dead. And like I said, it's my fault.
My kid is/was allergic to dairy. He needed soy formula or he was like a little exorcist baby, and when I tried to introduce cow's milk at age 1, it wasn't any better. We laid off for a year, tried again, and this time it resulted in hives and swelling that came way too close to anaphylaxis for comfort. So he didn't eat any dairy for years.
Do you have any idea how much this limits your kid's diet? Finding shit for him to eat, especially on a tight budget, was hard. So I fell into the goddamn parent trap of letting him eat spaghettios, chicken nuggets, and a handful of other inoffensive kid foods for a good two years. Christ, I could kick myself. At any rate, when Nik and I moved in together almost two years ago, we agreed that we were gonna get this kid eating normal fucking food if it KILLED us. And sometimes, I think it will.
I try as often as possible to make meals we all can eat, but sometimes it's hard. We struck a pretty decent balance. Before Nik started working until late in the evening, we were eating the same meals at least 3 times a week. Yeah, it sucked for a while, and the pea episode was certainly a bitch, but for the most part, I can now get Donovan to eat least TRY things. And "try" is generally all I ask for, unless I know for a fact that the kid likes what he's eating and is just testing his will versus ours.
And then, when he started only going to his dad's every other weekend, they started falling all over themselves to please him while he's there. This includes, and I was FLABBERGASTED when I heard this, making him up to SIX OR SEVEN DISHES at each meal until they find one that is acceptable to his Royal Pain-in-the-Assness. And so the food issue exacerbated again, because wonder of wonders, the kid expected me and Nik to do the same damn thing.
Yeah. Sorry, pal. I love you and shit, but that is not going to happen. You'll eat what I put in front of you. End of story. And so began the Oatmeal Saga of 2008.
Long story slightly less long - he's recently been retested for his allergies, and we got clearance to start trying him on things with low dairy content, with moderate success. Anyway, I put a bowl of bananas and cream oatmeal in front of him on Thursday morning.
He tried a bite. Declared it "not awful." Ate about 3 more bites, and then put his spoon down and imperiously commanded that I make him something else, could he possibly just have some fruit, or maybe some graham crackers? Um, no, actually. Just finish the oatmeal. This was at 9:30 that morning.
10:00, he's still picking at it. I calmly inform him that he's going to eat the oatmeal regardless, but if he makes a big deal out of it, he can forget all the fun stuff we had planned for that day.
10:30 - still picking at the oatmeal. (have you ever seen how much is in just one packet of quaker instant oatmeal? it's not a lot, people. Like..ten decent spoonfuls. When I make it for myself, I make at least 3 packs. I don't think I was asking for a lot, here.)
11:30 - still picking at the goddamn oatmeal. I now informed him that if he did not finish the oatmeal in time for school, he would have oatmeal for dinner.
12:30 - suffice it to say, the oatmeal was not finished, and it was time for school. I reiterated to him over and over again that he made a really poor choice. He could have just eaten the oatmeal, and never had to think about it again, and had a really fun day. Now, we weren't gonna do any fun stuff, and he was going to have to eat oatmeal for dinner. And if he didn't eat it then, he would continue to be served a bowl of oatmeal for every meal until he finished one.
The Oatmeal saga didn't end until 10:30 that evening, and it involved him making himself vomit a few times (a neat little trick he's had since he started eating solids. Sorry, kid. THat may work elsewhere, but round these parts, I'd prefer to spend 10 minutes cleaning up puke than a lifetime apologizing for your annoying pickiness) and a screaming fit the likes of which I have not heard since he was 2. Dude, his screaming was so bad that the next day, my neighbor got in my face and told me if she ever heard my kid screaming like that, she was calling the cops on me. I don't think I assuaged her fears when I laughed in her face. But, finally, he did eat a goddamn bowl of oatmeal. And, surprise! IT DIDN'T KILL HIM. Nor did it scar him for life, I'm pretty sure. But it did prompt him the next day to try my funky looking lunch with zero hesitation or complaint.
My mom was LIVID about this. She bit her tongue on the word "abusive" more times than I could count. In her mind, doing something that "forced" him to willingly make himself vomit constituted torture. In my mind, making it clear that shit like that will not fly in my house or the real world saves him a lifetime of being the asshole who won't eat a goddamn sandwich without the crusts cut off, even when he's 30. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
3. I call bullshit on the "he's just a kid!" mantra.
Yeah, he's 5. Sometimes he's gonna be rowdy, sometimes he's going to be headstrong. But there are a few things I expect from him unequivocally. One, you will ALWAYS be polite. To EVERYONE. Relatives and strangers alike. Two, if I tell you to stop doing something in my "mom voice" you will STOP. AT THAT SECOND. Sometimes, I don't break out the "mom voice" until I've asked him once or twice to knock it off nicely. Other times, when he's doing something potentially dangerous, it's my first tool, and usually it works. Three, you will never, EVER, deliberately hurt someone and not pay serious consequences for it.
A few examples include: a couple Christmases ago, he was given a gift by I don't even remember who and he said something really snotty about it. As a result? I took his Christmas presents and put them all away. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I explained to him that if he could not accept one gift like a gentlemen, he did not deserve any gifts at all. I let him earn back his presents with good behavior over the course of several weeks. Again, I got lambasted for doing that to a kid so young. (He was 3, I think.) Really? Cuz as far as I can tell, he doesn't even remember the incident, but he DOES proclaim with glee and delight and gratitude at every gift he's given now. I really fucked the kid up, didn't I?
Another set of examples is pretty much any time I go to any relatives for any event whatsoever. Whenever he gets too worked up and rowdy, I demand that he stop. If he doesn't listen to me, straight to time out he goes. If it continues after that, he will sit out the remainder of the festivities. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm taking it too far here, because how much good can it do if while he's sitting by himself on the couch, he's listening to 5 or 10 other adults tell me I'm too hard on him? But I stand by my decision - he's going to learn that certain places warrant certain behavior, and if he cannot abide by that behavior, he's going to miss out. That's it.
And finally, if he hurts anyone - me, Nik, another kid, whatever, it's game over. That, and lying, and are the ultimate offenses in my house. He loses EVERYTHING for at least a week. TV, toys, library trips, snacks, EVERYTHING. While his anger occasionally still gets the best of him when it comes to me and Nik (he has a nasty habit of passive-aggressively 'accidentally' digging his nails into our hands when he's holding them if he's pissed about something) he has subsequently had one, count it, ONE incident EVER where he's gotten too rough with a peer at school or daycare.
In keeping with this theme, I also call bullshit on any bad behavior enacted by myself or my husband. I have never pretended we're perfect, not to him or anyone else. He's seen us, me mostly, act pretty horrendously out of anger, especially during the course of my own mental battles. Whenever this happened, I always made sure to apologize to him for my behavior, made sure he saw me apologize to Nik for my behavior, and made sure he saw the consequences I had to face for acting poorly. The kid will learn that there are consequences to any decent human being's behavior if it's the only goddamn thing I ever teach him.
Everyone I know aside from my husband thinks we're too harsh on him. But you know what? I'm the only parent I know who has been able to take my kid to places like restaurants and have him behave like a quiet, polite human being (read: no temper tantrums, no running all over the damn place, no demanding shit from waitresses, and no need for me to endlessly entertain him) since he was 3. I'm pretty sure it's because I've always been unwilling to excuse spoiled, bratty behavior with a dismissive smile and a refrain of "he's just a kid!"
4. I constantly "defer to my husband just cuz he's the breadwinner!"
Ugh. Some people I love and care about really sound fucking stupid sometimes. I went to a high school for pregnant broads, and as a result, I'm still semi-friends with a bunch of girls who are no longer with their children's fathers. And for some reason, they all take MAJOR offense with the fact that I always consult with my husband, who is not Donovan's biological father, on our parenting methods.
First of all, Nik hasn't always been the breadwinner. This is a relatively new occurrence. Yet, I have indeed always consulted with him when it comes to Donovan.
Secondly, Nik has known Donovan since he was a year and a half old. I kept them relatively separated until I was pretty sure Nik was going to remain a force in our lives, so he's been a prominent figure in Donovan's life since he was about 2 1/2, 3 years old. Now we live together, we're married, and Donovan is as much his child as he is mine. The way I parent my kid directly affects him, our household dynamic, and any children we have together. Why in God's name would I NOT consult him? Not to mention the fact that Nik was raised by the absolute BEST father I've ever met in my life, and I'd be fucking crazy not to let him impart the wisdom he received from him onto OUR son. Besides, what the hell would I be telling Donovan about the typical family dynamic if he thought I call all the shots? That it's totally ok to bring in a paycheck as a father, that the job ends there? That I'm omniscient and all-powerful but his dad or step-father is just a dumbass that pays the bills? No. Regardless of who happens to actually be making the most money, two things in my marriage are absolutely 50/50. Parenting, and major financial decisions. End of story. I still can't fathom why this is such a big deal to so many people.
5. I let him watch violent movies.
This one might be the one that makes the most people cringe. Secret, awful, shaming confession - my kid has seen the movie 300. Multiple times.
I've felt strongly about this topic since Columbine, and the resulting media frenzy about violent movies, video games, and music.
Here's my point - if you raise your kids properly, they will know, at any age, that what they see in a movie or on TV, what they hear in music, what they pretend during the course of a video game, is FAKE. It is NOT REAL, and it is NOT acceptable to mimic what you see.
I don't let him watch things that are overtly sexual in nature, because he just doesn't need to think about shit like that just yet. Up until recently, I was pretty avid in avoiding movies with a lot of curse words. Before they're about 5, they're innately prone to repeatedly words they hear in movies, even in innocent context. I once heard a 3 year old in a grocery store ask her mother what "fuck" meant after she heard another asshole patron railing against the self-checkout machine. The mother was mortified, and a few other patrons looked at her like she was the ultimate asshole. I wish they hadn't left so quickly, cuz I would have told her to relax. Kids repeat shit. It's not the end of the world, and sometimes even the most vigilant parenting can't avoid it. But it doesn't mean I didn't try to avoid it in my own house. Nowadays, I don't flinch when I hear characters on TV curse in my kid's presence. He's been around for 5 years, he's met enough people and heard enough conversations to know the bad words. He also knows he is never to repeat them. So if he hears it now, he just sort of giggles and wonders why those people are saying bad words. He never repeats them.
And because of my vigilance about the importance of never hurting people or letting his anger get the best of him, I have never had to worry that he's going to go bash someone's head in cuz he saw it in a movie. Probably a good 75% of the American population doesn't agree with me, but I'll say it again - if you're doing your job teaching your kid life lessons, he or she won't need to learn them from TV. They'll understand that movies and the like are NOT examples of lives worth living, they're ENTERTAINMENT.
On that note, I will mention that I don't watch reality TV around my kid, because unfortunately, those ARE real people who are REALLY acting a certain way. It's hard to explain that it's just for entertainment purposes when these people are supposed to be real, and are being REWARDED for their poor decisions.
And so ends the litany of ways I am a bad parent. Give me a couple more weeks and I'm sure I'll get blasted for more shit I never even thought would be an issue. If you feel compelled to call child services, please also mention that I am the only parent in my kid's kindergarten class who has not complained about the homework the kids are given, and insists my child hand in his assignments, completed by him alone, on time every week. I'm sure they'll be banging at my door any day now.
