Sometimes I chuckle at all those Facebook status postings stating 'today is son or daughter week,' encouraging us to express, in essence, how wonderful our children are. I laugh because there are days when my little angels are more like little devils and I'd rather strangle them than laud praise on them. (Ummm, should I admit this publicly?)
Let me be clear. I love and am blessed by my kids. I also admit I have struggled with understanding or accepting some of their choices. I get that it has always been a rite of passage, generation after generation, for kids to rebel against parental boundaries and find their own way -- mistakes and all. Believe me, I did it too. But I'm not sure it has ever been easier, than now, to do so.
Music, movies, television, internet, texting, facebook, etc. endorse such widely opposing views and values. Collectively they make society's message clear to both kids and parents: 'Get with it Mom and Dad...today, anything goes.' The current real-time technology -- the stuff we often buy them -- even puts that message right into their hands and laps.....all in the privacy of the very homes we create to protect them. Is it any wonder then, that raising young men and women of good moral character and integrity has become such a battle? To cite a good old country song, 'when anything goes, then everything goes."
What's the answer? I'm convinced love, boundaries, modeling the behavior we expect our kids to follow -- mixed with heavy doses of prayer (hey God, I admit I can't do this by myself!) -- will help win the war. Even if it takes a little longer than we hoped it would. At times, we must put aside the praise, the stuff we buy them, and the all-out effort to 'make them happy' -- and just GET MEAN -- with hopes that one day, they'll understand it was the greatest expression of love we could ever give them.
Here's an excellent description, from an unkown author, of how to 'get mean:'
Loved by a Mean Mom:
Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me:
I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.
I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.
I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.
I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.
I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.
But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.
Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won, too. And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.
Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast. When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.
Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison. She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.
We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.
She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!
Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16 .
Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was. I think that is what's wrong with the world today. It just doesn't have enough mean moms!
Now encourage others...PASS THIS ON TO ALL THE MEAN MOTHERS YOU KNOW.
