Tonight, my children were on my last nerve. Last nerve. I was trying to get some work done, and they were running around like wild, out of control animals, refusing to eat their dinners and flat out ignoring me. After I unsuccessfully called them in to the table for the 37th time, I began losing my temper. When I heard them laughing at my increasing anger, it only made things worse. By the time I finally located them using their hot-pink-berry-from-the-back-yard-stained-hands to finger paint each other and the house, I lost it.
I was far too angry to even grab the camera. When a Mommy Blogger is too pissed off to document a hot pink photo op such as this, you know she means business. Their shirts were off, their bodies stained pink and they all had amused expressions on their faces. All of them, except me. I grabbed my pink children and led them by the ears into the house, hissing at them their future punishments. I wanted to scare them. To shake them up into taking me seriously for once.
As I loudly slammed the screen door behind me, I caught glimpse of a neighbor gawking at me. Gawking at me like I have gawked at spanking in public or people who speak to their children in vicious tones. Gawking at me like I was one of those people who are undeserving and unfit and need to take a deep breath and calm the fuck down. Like that woman who made news a few months ago for dragging her tantrum throwing child from a store. Those people who are so easy to judge. Me.
At least nobody pulled out a video camera today. Because the footage could have made the evening news. And the children? They’re sleeping peacefully now and look like freaking angels. Freaking angels with pink hands.
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Hmmm. I am probably the role model for a true, really scary mommy as well as grandmother too! I have on numerous occasions over the past 42 years probably broken every cardinal rule about child rearing!
From the time my youngest (of three children) was almost 4 years old, I was a single parent and my ex -well, when he was around, we both actually believed in corporal punishment for misdeeds of the children. Not beatings, but spankings, yes. Dr. Phil would so have ripped me a new one I’m quite sure for some of the things my kids had to put up with from me! I was then -still am -loud, can be aggressive and intimidating too and with a vocabulary that probably could rival many a sailor, there were only a very few words of the bad kind my kids didn’t hear come from me now and again over the years. (My grandchildren -two who along with their parents and older half-sister -live with me, still get a royal dose of the bad language from time to time too. Not bragging about that, just saying that because I do cuss and why lie about it when my neighbors, should you ever happen to meet any of them would rat me out in a heartbeat.
But, what I will brag about is that I did, somehow by the Grace of God and all else that is holy I suppose, manage to raise my three offspring to adulthood and though they are certainly not saints, they have turned out to be three of the nicest people you’d ever hope to meet. I didn’t believe in coddling my kids -if they misbehaved, they knew they would incur my wrath -which usually entailed lots of long lectures, often filled with a lot of those previously mentioned bad words. They knew if were were going someplace and if the weather was crappy, they better sit quietly and let me listen to traffic information via the CB radio I used to have in my car -that way I knew what to expect on the highway and to try to avoid those things and their safety was all intertwined in that. They knew too that because of my work schedule -two jobs for most of my time as a parent -that they had best not ask for things that were unnecessary luxuries, expensive toys/clothes, etc. They could ask for things that were necessary and I would try my level best to get them what I could but there was a line -a fine line that was drawn and they knew not to cross that. They also knew that often while I was working their older sister was in charge of watching over them and they best not cross any lines she had drawn in the sand either! They also understood the majority of the time though why I had those rules, why they were expected to do or not do certain things because they did understand the economics of our home. It was called poverty row -or that’s how my son would describe it to you now if asked but he’d also tell you that he -having had the opportunity to choose to live with me and his sisters (on poverty row) or going to live with his dad and have access to many of the things he could only dream about here -fancy bicycles, 4-wheelers, and the like -when push came to shove, he opted to stay with me because he came to the realization that his dad was merely playing the age old game of “Come live with me and be my love and I will buy you everything!” but that still came with a price and that was understanding his dad often forgot many, many promises too! Anyway, he says that he has never regretted making that choice so maybe I wasn’t quite as “scary” to him as I thought I was then or even that I think I am now, for that matter. He tells his little niece and the 17-year-old stepgranddaughter to be wary of me though because I am not now the same person he grew up with -meaning that I have developed a little bit of a softer edge at times. Not much, but a little anyway. So maybe that’s progress on my part. I dunno. You tell me! I could write a book on some of the things I have done over the years I suppose -but all you’re getting tonight anyway is chapter 1. Stay tuned and who knows, maybe I shock the hell out of everyone and give you more chapters in how to really be a for-real, scary Mommy/Grammie!
.-= Jeni Hill Ertmer´s last blog ..The Good That is There! =-.
Don’t you just love your monkey?! Mine the same way… Most days its blissful being a mother… but there are those days that I can’t help but think… “Why the hell not.. children should be working in fields”
.-= ZNusbaum´s last blog ..Meet Sonny =-.
I am new to your blog and am in the process of reading your entire archives. Hilarious and pure genius. My 3 year old daughter seems to be going through the same thorn ridden path your Lily is going down.
This post reminded me of when I had the “pleasure” of taking a friends little brother to the store with me. He started throwing a fit so I left the cart with all the goods in it, picked him up and walked out of the store….almost. He had been screaming “Your not my mommy, you can’t take me, I want my mommy.” The store security guards stopped me at the door and I had to endure questioning from them about the things he was saying all while he would not admit that he knew me. It was horrific and almost scared me away from having one of my own. He is now about to move into high school and I tease him about it all the time.
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