No video games during the week. That’s the rule. Sometimes if the kids finish early, we’ll relax the rule and let them play their DS after 6 pm. Doesn’t bother me, cause we eat around that time, then there’s baths, then bed, so that comes up to about 15 minutes of games by the time they remember to ask. Either way, they have to ASK, and we collect them before bedtime.
The boy decides to hide his in his sister’s room. She doesn’t tell on him, she just hides it further in her room, so he doesn’t get in trouble. Eventually there is a question as to where the DS is… he starts acting funny, so she goes and gets it. I tell him that he has to ask for it the next time he wants to play it.
“I don’t want it.”
I think there is a rule somewhere that says you aren’t supposed to cuss at your kids. I think there is. I haven’t actually read it – but I am pretty confident that it exists somewhere. So I didn’t cuss. My eye said, @#$%#@& WHAT DID YOU SAY?! My mouth said nothing. Then I got up and chunked the DS in the trash. End of story – no more argument, nothing else to discuss – as far as the DS was concerned.
What we did have to discuss was the lack of respect in what came out of his face. I do what I do for my kids because it is my job. A job that I don’t get paid for, but that I work hard at. Sometimes I do overtime – so much overtime, that they start to think that THAT is part of my job too. Well guess what. I let him know that what I do is not normal. What his dad does isn’t normal. It should be, but the truth of the matter is – it isn’t. Strangers have let him know that his parents go above and beyond, and even though kids usually take a strangers advice over their parents, this particular thing hasn’t sunk in yet.
I know to most parents, his response was mild. Not to me, it wasn’t. I can’t even imagine what my mom would have said to me if this was 1988. Honestly, I don’t want to. *shiver*
I. Let. Him. Have. It.
Sick, tired, and all. I mustered up enough energy to let him know who he won’t be snapping back at, who he won’t be disrespecting, and who he won’t be getting smart with – that would be me. I have no clue what is going on in the boy’s mind most of the time. Kids today have so much more to deal with than I ever did. I was a trip at 13. My mom told me to do something I thought was ridiculous – and I said no. She asked me what I said, and I said, “I said – no.” I got my last real “cut @$$” then.
At some point I figured out who was on my side – my parents were – before anyone else. They were the ones who would have my back when the bullies were trying to get me to give up. They were my first line of defense against the real world, which could be so cruel for a black girl at a white school in Georgia. They were there to show me all that was good to be had in the world if you got an education, worked hard, and treated people fairly. I am not sure when the boy will figure it out, but I’d rather have it be sooner rather than later.
He’s not scared of us like I was scared of my parents. It is hard for me to find that happy balance between the way I was raised and the American “style” of parenting. You know – listening to the kids, acknowledging their feelings, discussing things, dialogue (the kind that they are supposed to respond to – not the rhetorical “didn’t I tell you…” that you better not answer), stuff like that. I feared my parents. Not like the, “they’re gonna beat me to death,” kinda fear – but the, “I don’t know what they’d do – and I don’t have any intention of finding out,” kind of fear.
My mom had no idea what I was doing in school. I just needed to bring home, “good marks in school,” and the teacher better not call her for any foolishness. By good marks, she meant A’s. A “B” would be acceptable, if she felt the subject was hard enough that a B was the best I could do. Me, I know it all – too much probably. What his work is, when it is due, how long it will take, if he studied or not, all that. I asked my husband if his parents were that involved in his education – he laughed.
So maybe it isn’t a Caribbean or American parenting thing – maybe it is a generational thing. Who knows. What I do know is, I’m ready for 21. I wasn’t TRULY grateful for what they did until I graduated from college. Even then I didn’t really appreciate it all until I had children, and I wanted to give them everything I was given and there weren’t enough hours in the day or money in the bank.
Do you think your kids get it? Do they KNOW how blessed they are? What do you do to teach your kids to be grateful? When I was growing up, the usual speech involved “starving kids in Africa” and not throwing away the food I didn’t like. Community service? What creative ideas do you have to get kids to be more thankful for where they are and what they have? Do you use Thanksgiving as a time to teach your kids to be grateful? Let’s talk in the comments section!
