Old Rules; New Rules

I was just on the phone and, as I was saying my good-bye, mentioned that I still didn’t have a topic for tonight’s blog post. I needed to think of something. I thought I had a good subject earlier today but decided against it at the last minute. Things haven’t been going very well for me lately and I’m pissed off about it. I get shit on a little more every day and I’m getting sick of it. I was actually going to write about all the crap that’s been happening lately but then decided I didn’t need to dwell on it, nor do you want to read any more about my woes. So, as I hung up the phone, I walked to the kitchen to toss out the empty sunflower shells that I’d just filled my ashtray with and to get a drink of milk. I’ve got a glass of water on my desk, I always have water with me, but I really wanted some milk. I took the gallon out of the fridge and began drinking. Yes, I drink out of the milk container. My kids and I are the only ones who live here and we’ve all got the same DNA so why not? My mother hated when I drank out of the container and I could never figure out why since she didn’t drink milk at all.

I do a lot of things that my mother never did, and I don’t do a lot of things that she did. I actually make a concerted effort not to be like my mother, and I know I don’t raise my kids the same way she raised my sister and me. I was just having this conversation with Ellen the other day, part of it anyway, about the stupid things my mother used to say to me. “Why don’t you put on a jacket (sweater)?” Why Mom, am I cold? She was the one who was cold but she’d want me to put on a jacket or sweater; now that makes sense. Not. Or she’d ask me, “You want to take out the garbage?” Um, nope, not really feeling the desire right now, but thanks for asking. When I’d say, “Not really,” she’d say, “Well do it anyway, please.” Gee, Mother, if I don’t have a choice, why not just ask me to take out the garbage rather than asking me if I want to. DUH!!

She also had some really stupid rules, if you ask me. We weren’t allowed to sing at the table? Why not? People in musicals sing at the table all the time and don’t get the Manners Police called in to stop them. Yea, I know, I don’t live in a musical. I could if I wanted to; I just really can’t sing so I’ll refrain so as not to harm anyone. In any case, why the “no singing at the table” rule? It’s not like we’d go out to a restaurant and my sister and I would start singing in the middle of the meal. What the fuck? My kids and I will be sitting at the table and one of them might remember a song he or she learned at school and want to share it. I say, feel free and sing your heart out. Maybe we can all join in on the second verse. If we’re sitting at the coffee table because they want to watch a TV show while we eat (which my mother would never permit; we always ate at the kitchen or dining table), we may start singing with the program. What’s the big deal? Nobody is getting hurt, we’re enjoying a meal together, and we’re all having fun. Who gives a shit if we sing? I don’t.

I do teach my kids to keep elbows off the table and to put their napkins in their laps; if they forget, so be it, the world won’t end. They don’t have to finish everything on their plates and I only request that they try something if they claim to not like it. If they don’t want to try it, I don’t force the issue. My mother was one who made us try everything on our plates whether we wanted to or not. She’d even lie to us to get us to eat certain foods. I did not like carrots at all when I was a kid. My mother kept telling me they were good for my eyes so I gagged them down my throat. When I was nine I got glasses; so much for carrots being good for my eyes. Why lie to me; what good does that do for either of us? Yes, you get me to eat my carrots, but when I find out you lied, not only do I stop eating carrots, but I have a hard time believing you about other shit. I did start eating carrots when I was pregnant with Dolly because they tasted really sweet to me. Now I eat them all the time.

Zach asked me about the carrot issue the other night at the table, though. So I told him I wasn’t going to lie to him the way my mother lied to me. Yes, carrots have vitamins that are helpful to your eyes, but they won’t prevent your eyesight from going bad. I told him he could eat them or not but not to eat them simply because they are good for his eyes because there are other things that are good for his eyes too. Thank goodness he didn’t ask me what because I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head. I’m not going to lie to my kids about stuff like that, though; it isn’t fair to any of us and I really hate lying in any form, or for any reason. I don’t lie to them about anything; I just keep things age appropriate.

Like I said, my mother did some stupid shit and had some really dumb rules. She wanted us to keep our room cleaned at all times. I can understand that when we’re young; she was trying to teach us responsibility. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt anyway, and not say that she was a control freak about that shit. I want my kids to clean their rooms too and generally freak out when the floor has completely disappeared; until then, I can remain cool about it. When I was in my early twenties, though, I gained the bedroom my sister and I had shared for years to myself when she got married. The room was a dormered attic space and was out of the way of the rest of the house. I was never a neat freak, but I kept clean clothes folded neatly in piles on the floor because of a lack of storage space, kept dirty clothing in one pile near the door until I had enough to make a full load of laundry, and I never made my bed. I was just going to sleep in it later that night so what was the point? My mother was always up my ass to make sure my room was clean and my bed was made. What the fuck for? By her reasoning it was because it should be clean for visitors. By my reasoning she didn’t make any sense.

First of all, she, my dad, and I all worked during the day so anyone in the house while we were out was not there for a social visit; he or she was there to rob the place and wouldn’t really give a shit how clean or messy my room was at the time, and would probably mess it up even more before exiting the premises. If we were home and had company, nobody needed to be in my room since it was my own private space and, if they were in there for some reason and didn’t like how it looked, they could just get the fuck out and go back downstairs. She finally stopped hounding me after I explained my reasoning. See, she was narcissistic (I think I’ve mentioned that before) and was only concerned about what people would think of her if my room was a mess.

My mother also doled out enough chores that she turned me into an adult by the time I was eight. I had to watch over my sister and we had to do all the chores around the house. I think I recall my mother doing the laundry and occasionally cooking something besides TV dinners, but my sister and I were responsible for setting and clearing the table, doing the dishes, and cleaning the house – including our mother’s room. What is up with that? I keep my kids’ chores – or household contributions as we call them – at an age-appropriate level and still allow them to be kids. If they’re outside, the boys are required to watch out for Dolly but I’m always there looking out the door to make sure everything is on the up-and-up with them. They have to clean their rooms and pick up their things from the common living areas, wash their own cereal bowls and drink cups, and the boys have to alternate taking out the garbage; Dolly is too short to get it in the dumpster yet. That’s it, though; and I would never ask them to clean my room. That would be totally unfair. All the rest of the household work is mine and will be shared as the children grow and are capable of doing the job correctly the first time so I don’t have to re-do it. Regardless, they’re allowed to be kids where my sister and I weren’t.

My kids complain all the time that they have so much to do, their lives are so hectic and overwrought with responsibility; and then I’ll explain what I had to do as a kid so they can compare their lives to mine. I’ll ask if they want to live the way I did and, of course, I get a resounding “No” every time. What kid would say yes to that question? Honestly now, none that I know. My kids will see how easy the have it compared to my old life and that of some of their friends, and they will appreciate me just a little bit more. Then we’ll all sit down to dinner in front of the TV, sing along with SpongeBob, and take turns swigging out of the milk container.

Until next time…peace to all.