Notes on Parenting

Parenting older children means a lot of things to me.  Things that were important to me as a mother to young children have changed.  I wanted to write these down so I could compare notes in a few years with myself and see how much the teenage years rocked the pre-teen years.

1.  You let go of control.  When they were little, the children asked, "can I have (fill in the blank with whatever snack they preferred)?"  While Honey still asks for snacks, the rest just help themselves.  That means I no longer have control over the pantry, refrigerator and microwave (see ex.1).  The help themselves, warm it up and leave it out.  I still have complete control over the stove and oven, however.  Though I know, from talking to friends with teenagers and remembering my own late-night cake baking habits, those years too will come to an end soon.

Exhibit 1: The microwave after a wave of hungry breakfasters.

2.  You take things personally.  My mom always told me not to take things personally.  When they were toddlers it was easy to tell myself, "When they yell, 'I hate you mommy,' they don't really mean it.  They don't know what that means."  Now, it's not so easy to explain away they yell, stomp off and slam a door.  It hurts my feelings.  I better get an emotional armor before it really gets bad!

3.  Money means nothing.  As in, "there's nothing left in the bank account."  My friends told me registering Mr. M for middle school would mean checkbook in hand and pen out ... but boy hardy!  They didn't mention that it also required an endless cash flow.  Allowances of quarters are no longer seen acceptable.  There are activities, clothes, sports and musical ... everything has a price tag!

4.  Things are so much cooler.  Laughing with your baby is the best.  But laughing with your 11 year old when he understands your joke or actually made you laugh with his own is the bestest.  And taking fashion advice from your daughter that actually makes sense (as opposed to the old days when she told you to wear heels with your cutoff stained sweats) is pretty fun.

5.  Reading together has a whole new meaning.  I had to make this its own one.  Because I really love reading with my little kids.  But I really, really love reading books along with my older kids.  Not that I read aloud anymore.  But we read the same books and talk about them.  Or get excited for a new one in the series to come out.  It's one of the sweet things in my life.

6.  It's really up to them.  This is the hardest one for me.  As little kids I got to shape who they played with and what they said (since I spent most of the day with them).  But as they age and spend more and more time away from home you have to hope that you taught and are teaching them well enough that they can stand on their own.  It's hard to hear when other kids are mean or they forgot to turn in an assignment.  But as I told Mr. M the other day, growing up isn't about becoming a certain age, it's about the sum of your experiences making you older and, hopefully, wiser.