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Christi Diggs
on May 23 2013 - 06:00 AM
A drop of spin, a cup of deception and tsp. politics=Apathy
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Lindsay Metcalf
on May 22 2013 - 06:00 AM
When that tornado siren sounds, I'm in the basement
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mara williams
on May 21 2013 - 06:00 AM
Summer break has this mom on a house upkeep war path.
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As a parent I’ve done so many things that I swore I would never do.
Like chicken nuggets for dinner. Sure, they’re vegetarian “chik’n”, but they’re still some sort of processed mystery nuggets, and they're greasy. And now that I’ve done it, I have fully embraced them as part of the culinary rotation.
Another is that I vowed to avoid saying things that my father used to say. That, too, has come to pass, and I have accepted it as an evolutionary inevitability. It’s difficult to outsmart genetics and hot-tempered Irish roots.
But my latest struggle has been more challenging. It deals with my good-faith effort to keep promises I make to my kids.
I told myself that I would never be the type of parent who tells my kids I will do something and then doesn’t follow through. Well, it’s happened. Many times lately, and I’m trying not to beat myself up about it.
Sure. I’ve got good reasons for not following through. Life gets in the way. Plans change. And kids need to learn flexibility and understand that things don’t always go their way, right? Well, yes, but I still think that the responsibility rests squarely upon my shoulders to create realistic expectations.
So, rather than immediately reacting to a request by saying, “Yes! Tomorrow we will fly to the moon!”, it might be in my best interest to say something like, “Well, if we don’t have anything else planned, and if you get all of your homework finished, and if there is enough jet fuel in the rocket, then we can fly to the moon. And if not, then we will go play at the park after lunch.” That way, I’m not setting any unrealistic expectations, and I’m very specific about alternative plans.
But that’s not how it works, does it? We want to please our children and we want to be the heroes and we want to be cool and sometimes we just want them to stop pestering us. So, we create expectations. And when they test us by asking, “You promise?” we’re quick to answer, “Yes. Yes, of course.”
And then the next day when they realize that whatever it was they wanted to do isn’t going to happen, they're whining and crying, “But you promised!”
And you try to explain that you had no control over the sewer backing up and “I didn’t know that your mother had already planned on taking your sister to a birthday party and, besides, it’s really cold outside, and I’ve got a throbbing headache that makes it hard for me to even think straight. Can we do it next week? I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
And there you go again, making another promise that you know will be broken. Even as the words come out of your mouth, you know it’s not going to happen, but you don’t have the guts to un-promise or – God forbid – to say, “No.”
After going round and round in this vicious cycle of broken promises and shattered expectations, you know in your head and in your heart that sometimes you just need to say, “No!”
So, then you make a promise to yourself that next time you will not make any promises. And if you have to, you will just say, ‘No.’” And you know that you really mean business this time, because you just promised yourself.
But somehow you know that you’ll break that promise, too.
It’s OK. The kids will forgive you. But will you forgive yourself?
As a dad also and GP I read your story with interest. I learned early on just to say we'll see. So they learned that meant not for sure. When I did say we will do it! They new that I would do my best to make it happen. How the older generation run with it when I say we will do it. I am in the process now is training the next generation.
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