19 Apr

Go Away*

Posted by I suck as a parent in family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

“I can’t wait to go to college!” my 17-year-old proclaimed.

Finally, I thought. I was so excited that I completely ignored the fact that he finished the sentence with: “…so I can get away from YOU!”

All I heard was HE CAN’T WAIT TO GO TO COLLEGE!

Whatever the driving force may be, I don’t care – he wants to leave!

I was worried for a while that I was making his life too easy and he would never want to go to college. He doesn’t need to set an alarm clock because I happily (?!) climb up and down the stairs every morning for at least a half-an-hour begging him to get out of bed. He’s never had to make his own dinner (if food is not prepared he’ll graze until he can get the car keys and go out to eat); and his sheets and clothes are (surprise!) always clean when he needs them.

Why would he want to leave?? (And more importantly, what is wrong with me??)

I know most adults would never leave a place where they are catered to, waited on and downright worshipped, so why would a teen?

But I have finally hit on the best way to get your kids to leave: annoy them, harass them, remove their bedroom door if you have to, whatever it is just do it and let them move out.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. But I really, really, really want them to go to college – preferably a college that requires a 3-4 hour plane ride from home. Of course I will miss them but I will see them again – there are lots of breaks from school where they can come home, sleep late, visit their friends and borrow our car. Breaks that are just long enough to remind me that I want them to become productive members of society so they can move into their own homes and do their own laundry.

When we first started discussing college with our son, I didn’t really think that I would need to sell him on the idea of going away. It’s college! It’s freedom! It’s fun! But he just didn’t seem to grasp that.

We wanted to show him college students having fun (no, not playing beer pong or doing shots off of a co-eds belly) so we sent him to a college football game. Take my advice: If you are trying to sell your kid on the idea that college kids have SO MUCH FUN then don’t let him go to a football game on a rainy 43–degree day with his dad, uncle and grandfather and make him sit in the stands until the end of the game even though the final score is 83-10.

He won’t even look at a Big 10 school now.

We tried other tactics like stopping at a college that “just happened to be on our way” to our destination and scheduling college visits with his friends but nothing motivated him…until we demanded that he give up his phone at 11:00 pm every night.

Now he can’t wait to get away. Who knew?

I have to wield this new power wisely though. I don’t want to tighten our rules so much that we find him climbing out the window in the middle of the night to flee from the tyranny. No, I will pull out the demands only when I find him getting a little too comfortable in our home like when he plops himself on a stool at the counter and says “breakfast,” or when he’s out of clothes and asks me when I’m going to finish his laundry.

Then all bets are off…

 

*I’ve been holding on to this piece for the past couple of days because it seemed contrary to what I was feeling since the bombing incidents in Boston. This blog post is about wanting my kid to “Go Away” but on Monday I was prepared to have both of my kids live with me forever if it meant I could protect them from random acts of violence. But with a few day’s distance I remembered that no matter where my kids are I will worry about them. It doesn’t matter if they are running down the stairs too quickly at home or driving home from college, I will worry. If I tried to protect them from everything I wouldn’t allow them to go to the movies or a shopping mall without me and they wouldn’t be allowed to participate in largely populated events, teach children in elementary schools or even attend college. And those are only the events of the past year and a half. And so, it is with that in mind, that I can say my kid will leave home and I will worry but it is the way it’s supposed to be.

10 Mar

Happy Birthday to Me?

Posted by I suck as a parent in Birthdays, children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Yesterday was my older son’s 17th birthday and I spent the day shopping…for me.

I hadn’t picked out a gift for my son yet and yes, it was on my mind as I lunched with a couple of friends and meandered through over-priced niche stores, but it didn’t stop me from shopping for me. And why would it?

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me that I should be getting gifts for bringing life to my child. Why wasn’t my husband buying me presents to thank me for giving birth to—and raising—his oldest child? Sure, he did that after our son was born but why stop there??

And grandparents? Where were my gifts?  Shouldn’t they be showering me with gifts as well? My contribution to this endeavor has brought them 17 years of joy beyond anything they could possibly have imagined and yet, I have never been appropriately thanked…with presents, that is.

The day didn’t start out as a shopping trip for me. As I set out in the morning I was actually a bit obsessed with finding my kid the perfect gift (especially since the day was upon us and I was empty-handed).

But when I found myself at the perfume counter at Barney’s, I knew I was no longer shopping for him. Yes, I made a good showing of trying to find him some after-shave but Barney’s doesn’t carry Axe and I wasn’t really going to spend fifty bucks on aftershave for a 17-year-old.

I’m not suggesting that you skip your child’s birthday celebration and make it all about you. No, your kid should have gifts and cake and celebrate with friends and family.

But raising kids is a thankless job—we’ve all heard that before—and it doesn’t really have to be. If no one is going to thank you why not give yourself a little treat on your child’s birthday. Why not spend the afternoon celebrating with friends – preferably at a nice lunch followed by a Sprinkles Chai Latte cupcake?

It really doesn’t have to cost anything, though. It could simply be the gift of time: time to read a book, or take a nap or go for a walk…but new perfume doesn’t hurt either.

27 Feb

Beyond the Ivy

Posted by I suck as a parent in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

I live in a highly competitive town; the kind of town that is populated by over-educated, type-A parents who breed over-educated, highly competitive, type-A kids. Why, you may ask, do I live here? Well, when your kids are little and you are looking for a house you are easily swayed by a nice, safe community and blue ribbon schools. What you don’t realize though, is that while you intend to read Goodnight Moon and Polar Bear, Polar Bear to your kids, your neighbor will be reading Anna Karenina and War and Peace to his kids…in Russian.

Little by little though (when it’s too late to uproot your family) you start to see the signs: your kid can’t play competitive baseball past the age of 9 unless he can make the travel team (and if he can’t make the travel team then it’s time to pick a new sport); your daughter can’t get the lead in the community play and play soccer at the same time because only serious actors need apply for the leads; and don’t even think about having a child who wants to play an instrument in high school and explore another subject as an elective.

Although we managed to avoid most of that stress for the first 15 years of our oldest child’s life nothing prepared me for the ultimate competition…the college search.

My 16-year-old attends a public high school with over 4000 kids—1100 of them are juniors like he is—and apparently every single one of those juniors is going to an Ivy League University.

That’s right!

According to every parent that I run into his/her child is being courted by or committed to an Ivy! And they are only juniors!

Ok. Clearly many (not all) of them are full of shit but it still makes me feel like I’ve failed miserably at something. I want to pretend that my son is going to Princeton too!

It’s hard not to get caught up in the frenzy when you are surrounded by parents who are masters of the “humble brag”:

Poor Muffy! I don’t know how she is going to choose between Yale or Harvard. I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes!

Or

Did your son hear from Northwestern and Duke yet? Our mailbox is bursting with catalogs and letters from them. I figure everyone is hearing from them, right? It couldn’t just be my son, could it??

When I first heard about that kid being inundated with college mail I started to panic. Sure, my son was getting emails and brochures from schools but we weren’t buried in mail!

Then a friend pointed out that my son probably didn’t check the box on the ACT application that allows schools to send him materials.

It took everything in me not to find his login and check that damn box. Who knows what schools would send him brochures?! Then I would feel wanted!

Uhm, did I say I? I meant he. He will feel wanted. That’s right – this has nothing whatsoever to do with me.

And just like that I get sucked into this ugly place where I start to feel bad about my kid’s prospects even though he is doing really well.

When I am able to step off the habitrail of college craziness, I realize that I don’t actually care that my son is not looking at an Ivy League school. Contrary to what my neighbors say not everyone will attend a top tier school nor should they. It reminds me of something that author and psychologist, Madeline Levine said in the documentary, “Race to Nowhere.” I’m paraphrasing here but she pointed out that when we were growing up (I’m speaking as a 40-something here) we knew that some kids would go to Harvard, now everyone thinks they are.

But my son would not thrive at a highly rigorous university—for a dozen reasons (and no, I’m not trying to rationalize anything). My oldest is not an academic. He does not love to study. You will never catch him researching some random topic or reading the encyclopedia for fun (yes, that is what I used to do and yes, I am a total dork). But sometimes you realize that your kid is not you and they have other tremendous skills that are worth encouraging.

For instance, my oldest is highly adept at bringing disparate groups of people together and creating amazing connections between people. And—in what I view as his greatest skill—he has an uncanny ability to get other people to do things for him. Just the other day I told him that he couldn’t go out until he shoveled our sidewalks. Fifteen minutes later two of his friends showed up at our door with shovels in hand and helped him clear the snow.

I guarantee they can’t teach that in college. Ivy League schools be damned.

6 Feb

Running Bases

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

“I started my friend on a run today,” my 12-year-old told me as we made our way past the deli section at our neighborhood grocery store.

“A run?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“With a girl he likes,” he replied.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

He looked at me, eyebrows raised, a knowing smile playing across his face, “You know, running to first base, second base, third base…”

WTF??

I was frozen to the spot and not because I was in the ice cream aisle.

He’s 12!

And I’m his mom!!  Who says that to his mom??!

There is no way he understands what he just said, I thought. No way that my baby would be so intentionally crude in the frozen food section of the local grocery store.

“Do you know what that means?” I asked him as I reached for the ice cream (I couldn’t look at him and besides, I was going to need a lot of chocolate if his answer was yes).

“Of course,” he said.

“Where did you hear that?” I asked. I’m going to ground his older brother for life!! 

“TV,” he responded casually, not at all aware of the visions his comments were forcing me to have.

What kind of TV is my husband letting him watch??!

I turned to face him.

“Do you know what all the bases stand for?’ I asked.

“Whadda ya mean, stand for?” he asked warily.

“Sex,” I spat, probably a little louder than I intended because at least three people turned in my direction and glared at me.

“Sex?” my son repeated.  Now more people were staring.  “No, no,” he stammered. “It’s not sex. It means dating. It’s a homerun when the girl will go out with you.”

“No, it’s about sex,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Stop!” he yelled, covering his ears. “No, no, no. Stop talking about it!”

He raced ahead of me to the check out line.

Whew!  I thought. My kid isn’t a clueless little creep after all.

Despite the embarrassing stares from the toddler-toting set picking up their last-minute dinner supplies I felt pretty good about our little chat. And then it hit me…I just gave him something to think about! He was probably going to ask me what the bases were!

I put down the chocolate bar and headed for the wine department. This would definitely require something a bit stronger.

22 Jan

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Posted by I suck as a parent in children, christmas, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

It is January 22 and our Christmas tree is still in our living room. Although it is no longer standing (my husband laid it on its side yesterday – I think he thought he was hiding it from me) it has yet to be moved into our basement where it is stored for 11 months out of the year.

The problem is that every year since we bought a fake tree, I have been the one to bring the tree out of it’s storage closet, lug the parts up the stairs and assemble it in our living room. Then, in early January, I take down all of the ornaments—alone, take apart the tree—alone, drag it down the stairs—alone, and put it away – al (well, you get the idea).

But not this year. I already hurt my back taking off a cowboy boot, who knows what would happen if I had to stand on my tip-toes and try to pull apart our fake Fraser fir. I’m not risking it, so there the tree sits (although I did manage to wrest off the top portion of the tree which has been sitting on the floor since January 14).

photo

Of course, everyone wants to join in when we are decorating the tree but no one, surprisingly, wants to help with the clean up. And no one, surprisingly, notices that something needs to be cleaned up.

How is it possible that am I the only one who notices a 7-foot tall Christmas tree in the middle of the living room nearly a month after Christmas??

Still, I refused to demand that someone help me. I refused to yell and threaten and scream. I actually wanted to see how long it would take before someone in this house would ask why the tree was still up (or hiding behind the coffee table as the case may be).

photo

I was even starting to get used to it. If it wasn’t for my 12-year-old’s guitars that had migrated to the family room when the tree displaced them, I could probably live with the tree in the living room for a few more weeks. I even joked with a friend of mine that we should just leave the tree up and decorate it for every holiday.

There were so many possibilities! I could print out pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and hang them like ornaments on MLK Day or hang dragons for Chinese New Year or hearts on Valentine’s Day or even make copies of my left hand on National Left Hander’s Day and hang those up.  Would anyone notice the tree then??

I was cracking myself up so I told my 16-year-old about my idea. “Geez mom,” he said. “I’ll take the tree down.  All you had to do was ask!”

Funny. I was so busy not yelling and threatening and screaming at my kids that I forgot to ask them.

Lesson learned.

15 Jan

Endless Possibilities

Posted by I suck as a parent in family, kids, parenting, Uncategorized.

I let my kid watch 13 straight hours of television over winter break.

That’s right. 13 hours. In one day.

Don’t judge. He was sick. Actually, we were all sick, and when you are achy and sneezy and just plain blah, mindless TV is all that you have.

But as we sat huddled together on the couch, wrapped in blankets and sharing the last Kleenex box I had an epiphany: TV is more than just an idiot box. Yes, there are plenty of examples of idiocy—Honey Boo Boo springs to mind, as does everyone on The Jersey Shore and anything with the name Kardashian in it—but TV also lets you believe that anything is possible (and I don’t mean that it’s possible for a redneck child to land a TV deal).

My son spent his 13+ hours watching the entire second season of the television show, Chuck. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this television series the premise is that the show’s namesake, Chuck, is a brilliant but underachieving nerd who works at the equivalent of a Best Buy until he gets all of the NSA’s and the CIA’s secrets programmed into his head. Eventually,he becomes an amazing CIA agent who fights crime and gets the beautiful girl to fall in love with him.

When I watch the show I laugh that all of the female spies look like super models and I wonder how all of the employees of the store where Chuck works are incompetent but they still get to keep their jobs. My son, on the other hand, doesn’t notice the ridiculousness of the situations. He just thinks, why not:

Why can’t a gorgeous woman, who’s wearing a leather cat suit and four-inch heels, take on five terrorists with a plastic fork?

and

Why can’t someone build a computer program that would allow one person to carry the nation’s security secrets in his brain?

This, of course, leads him to ask:  why can’t I be the one to build this super computer…with my friend…in our basement?

He’s not thinking about how much work he will need to do or how long it will take. He just wants to be the first human with a computer in his head.

My first impulse—always—is to point out all of the difficulties my kids will encounter when they try to bring an idea to life instead of pointing out all of the possibilities. For instance, I want to point out that my son can’t possibly build a computer that holds all of the nation’s secrets because a) he doesn’t know enough about computers, b) he knows nothing about neuroscience and c) why would anyone in his right mind think it’s a good idea to put the nation’s secrets into one person’s head??

I am such a killjoy.

But as I lay in my NyQuil-induced fog contemplating how I’ve utterly failed to encourage my children’s creative processes, I stumbled on an article entitled “Be Wrong As Fast As You Can,” from last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. The author, Hugo Lindgren, recounted the number of brilliant ideas he had that he was never able to bring to life. “It’s really about where you take the idea, and how committed you are to solving the endless problems that come up in the execution,” Mr. Lindgren wrote.

Did Mr. Lindgren have a mom like me, I wondered? Was his mom also too quick to jump in and try to solve her kids’ problems before they had a chance to see if they even could work through the difficulties on their own??

And just like that, I realized that those “endless problems” are going to happen whether I bring them up or not. I might as well let my kids slam up against the difficulties to see not just how committed they are to the project and, more importantly, how resourceful they are at solving the problems. If I jump in too early they may never know what they are capable of.

So, I will allow him to tinker with the computer in an effort to create a program that he can one day download into his brain. Maybe he will learn more about computers (or at least finish assembling the pile of computer parts in his bedroom) or maybe he will learn more about the human brain. And, if none of that works out, maybe he can write a television show about his efforts.

See, TV is full of possibilities.

22 Dec

The Anger Stage of Grief

Posted by I suck as a parent in children, Connecticut, family, kids, parenting, Uncategorized.

My husband and I were out of the country last weekend celebrating our 20-year wedding anniversary. It was a last minute, whirlwind trip that I was really excited for. I was excited to leave the kids behind—no lunches, no homework battles, no bedtime fights.

Just adult time.

But then, on Friday night, after a long day away from televisions, newspapers, radio and WiFi we returned to our hotel and heard the news about the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. At that point I wanted to hear my kids bicker and fight—because I still could.

News of the events was everywhere: every television station and newspaper, whether in French or English, broadcast the details and debated America’s lack of effective gun control laws; we watched European soccer where the teams wore black armbands in memory of the victims; people in shops and cafes asked us about the tragedy.

I was grateful that we were out of town so my kids couldn’t see me cry and I couldn’t obsess about where my children were and what they were doing.There is nowhere that I think that they are safe from crazed gunmen anymore. I worry when they go to movies without me or when they go to the mall.

I’ve always worried about school shootings. We moved to a neighborhood where a woman shot several elementary school children. I actually thought that our kids would be safer living in this neighborhood because the odds that someone would commit a similar crime in the same school district seemed in our favor. How ridiculous is it that I even had that thought?

Every now and then I think about our high school choice. We moved from a neighborhood that I loved because I didn’t want my kids going to a high school where the students had to enter through metal detectors. Now I’m thinking that the added security would be a bonus. Again, how ridiculous is it that I even have these thoughts?

I’m not being flip, but why do these murders kill themselves after they’ve shot others? Is it because, as my husband thinks, they’ve suddenly had a moment of clarity when they realize what they’ve done or is it because they know they’ve been caught? I don’t care what the reason is, why can’t they do it before they kill anyone. Does that seem harsh? So does killing 20 innocent little children.

Clearly, after a week, I’ve moved into the anger stage of grieving. I think I’ll be here a long time.

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