natural consequences

Stay-at-home moms – a supporting role, not an enabler.

Today one of my daughters texted me from school to let me know that she’d left her piano music at home.  Since she drives straight to her lesson after school, this presented a problem.  

She had done the exact same thing two weeks ago.  Lucky for her, I had some errands to run in the vicinity so I grabbed her music and dropped it off on her piano teacher’s doorstep.

Because I had done that, my daughter inevitably believed that surely I could do the same this time.  And, to be honest, I probably could have without too much sacrifice.  

However, I declined for two reasons:

  1.  She needed to pay some of the price of having forgotten her music for the second time in a month.  If I’d swooped in and saved the day (again), she wouldn’t feel the inconvenience of having forgotten and would probably just forget again.
  2. I want her to understand that stay-at-home parents are people too and that one cannot assume that I am available at her beck and call.

That last one is tricky.  I mean, after all, choosing to stay home to raise my children means that I AM mostly available to support them in any manner of things – from carpooling to volunteering in their schools, to attending sporting events and concerts, to welcoming them home from school, to helping them with homework, and so on.

But even though, for the most part, I CAN help her, I have to discern when helping is actually enabling.

Sometimes it takes pretending I have a full-time job away from home to back away a bit and let my kids suffer.  And what really stinks about that is that they KNOW I could do it but I am choosing not to.  Which inevitably makes me out to be a mean mom.

So be it.  I’ve been at this parenting gig long enough that I’m practically made of steel.  Today I told my beloved child that I would not be in the neighborhood to drop off her piano music.  But I would be making a run to the gas station that was halfway between her school and home.  She could meet me there during her lunch hour to collect the goods.

I’m sure it was a bummer to miss out on the one time during school that she actually gets to hang out with friends.  But she came.  And is hopefully better for it.

Love and logic.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been told I’m the worst mom in the world, Tim could quit his job and stay-at-home with the kids too.  Today I got an earful because I was refusing to “rescue” my youngest daughter from her dilly-dallying morning ways by making her lunch.

She’d been up for half an hour and had barely gotten dressed.  She had five minutes left to do everything else – eat breakfast and make her lunch.  She uncharactetistically scarfed down a bowl of cereal but, when faced with the task of pulling together a lunch in a minute flat, she began to fall apart and yelled at me to help her with her lunch.  In response to her disrespect, and the fact that her distress could have been easily avoided by staying on task that morning, I flatly refused.

The girl launched into a full-blown tantrum and subsequently missed her ride to school.  Well, the policy in our house is that if you miss your ride, you get to walk the almost 1.5 miles to school.  By yourself.

She tried to turn the tables on me and say that she wouldn’t go to school unless I drove her.  I wasn’t playing that game.  The policy on THAT is that if she didn’t do her job (school), she would get to do my job for the day (a whole lotta chores, naturally).  We have a policy for everything, apparently.

Reluctantly, she began to come around.  She cleaned up the destruction her tantrum had resulted in, made her lunch and got herself out the door.  I followed her closely in the car for over a mile until we reached a certain point where the road ends and the walking path begins. I decided to join her for the final stretch.

Apparently, the fresh air and exercise had done her good.  We chatted about how she could avoid the same scenario in the future as we dodged sprinklers and giggled when we got sprayed.  All was forgiven.  Apparently I’m no longer the worst mom in the world.  At least until next time.