Careful What You Wish For
So I'm going through some stuff in life and thought I'd write about it. It's been a long time since I've done any writing on here, but I thought I'd give it a shot again, especially since I just discovered I can link this to Facebook. Anyway...
When movies and television shows talk about little girls they frequently talk about how they dream of their wedding day. The imaginary girls picture their dress, the flowers, the music, the location, the bouquet toss. I wasn't like that. I thought I would likely get married some day, and that would be cool. But mostly I imagined parenthood. I wanted to be a mommie, and for many reasons. I wanted to pass along the same excellent parenting my parents gave me. I wanted to have that connection that I had with my parents. I wanted to have little Nickeys to bring up to see the beauty of the world.
But mostly I wanted to be a parent because I saw how other people just really sucked at it. It all started when my chain-smoking-while-pregnant sister, Diane, gave birth to my niece, Sarah. Even at 10 years old I could see the mistakes Diane was making (besides the chain smoking). The most drastic mistake, though, was when Nate was born. Suddenly, Diane started ignoring Sarah in favor of Nate. She even admitted that she didn't like Sarah, even though she loved her; Sarah was about 3 at the time. I couldn't believe my ears when Diane told me this, and I privately vowed that I would be so much better to my kids when I had them. I tried to be the best Aunt Ni-ni I could be to Sarah, but I really wished she was my own kid, even as only a little kid myself. I knew that I could do better.
Time went on. I grew up and went to college. I got married and stopped going to college. I returned to school and then got divorced. I opened a business. And I met Joe. Instantly, even though he already had kids and was working through his own issues, I knew that this was the man I wanted to be the father of my children. Before we were together a year we had already picked a boy's name and a girl's name - Oliver Mitchell and Milana Joan. We would observe other kids and other parents and talk about how we would do things differently. We would raise our children to be accepting and loving of all people, no matter their gender, skin color, sexual preference or occupation. We would equally reprimand wrongs and encourage strengths. With the exception of Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, we agreed on every facet of parenting. We even knew that we would likely homeschool our children, at least as long as it remained the best option for them. We had lengthy conversations about how we would deal with sex, drugs, sneaking out, coming out, etc. We covered as many topics as we could come up with, and were able to agree about how we would handle them. The solutions weren't the important issue, though. It was just important that we agreed, and that we knew we would always have each other's back, at least as far as the kid was concerned. Meanwhile, we had his daughter, Emily, every other weekend. As much as we could, we instilled our ideals into her, but only so far as her very controlling mother would let us (another story for another entry). Naive as it may be to say, we had it figured out. So when we were ready, we decided to stop trying to NOT have a kid. That was four years ago.
About three years ago we moved here to Festus. Soon afterward the post-high school kids whom we considered friends started hanging out at our house more often. Every summer, during the theatre camp that I music direct, more kids would befriend us and ask if they could hang out. Sometimes they didn't even ask...they just showed up. We were cool with that. As long as their parents knew they were here, and that they were also welcome to be here (although none have taken us up on the offer, as yet) we didn't care. At first the kids (all in high school) just wanted something to do, somewhere to go besides home. So they would hang out, not really caring much why.
Eventually, all the younger people hanging out here would talk about problems at home and at school. At first it just seemed to be little things (my parents aren't being fair! school sucks!), but conversations evolved into deeper issues. We realized very quickly that there are a LOT more inept parents out there than we had thought. It's not just about what the kids say about their parents, which we take with hefty grains of salt. It was the ways we saw their parents behave. As yet, we haven't had a kid here who has been abused, but there are a lot of ways to mess up your kids than just to abuse them. The most common problems these kids have are neglect and inconsistency.
Before our experiences with the kids down here, I would have thought that these issues wouldn't affect teens so much. They're pretty independent by then, right? Not independent enough, though. They still need consistent boundaries, they need to be pointed in the right direction, they need to be told what they did wrong, why it's wrong and what they need to do to make things right. Little things like when to be home (which some parents constantly change), how to order take-out for a group, using a coaster, throwing away one's own trash. It's almost like some parents are amazingly attentive to the point of coddling, right up until the kid is a teenager, and then they expect the kid to instantly be responsible for their whole lives. I don't think they all started out being bad parents; they might not even be really bad, on the whole. It's just like they couldn't figure out how to turn a child into an adult, so they just gave up. And apparently, now Joe and I are teaching them how to gradually be adults. Some of them are going to be ok; some of them need some therapy to deal with feeling like their parents don't love them any more. I'm sure their parents DO love them. But maybe they're kind of like Diane, and don't know how to like the people their kids are becoming. I don't know, because their parents have never shown enough interest to even have a conversation with us about how their kid is doing. We tried, sure, but it's not really our responsibility. We just do what we can, and take the kid's word for it with whatever issue he/she is having because we have no other side with which to compare it.
In two days Emily will be coming here to live with us. Permanently. I'm so excited I could almost cry. After six years of being her pseudo-step-parent, it's amazingly overwhelming. But it's almost the same as the other situation. We're going to be raising someone who's already half-raised. We have to undo some bad habits, instill good ones, and all with love and consideration. WE have to be the ones to make sure she's going to be as amazing an adult as she is a 10-year-old.
It all comes back to Sarah, though. Instead of starting from the beginning, instead of being a life-giving mother, I'm stepping in (pun intended) halfway, raising someone else's kid. Whether it's Emily or one of our ever-growing set of adults-in-the-making, it's still only half a job. And it's daunting.
I've never been good with babies; they're confusing and kind of boring. You can only go "ooooh, isn't he so cute, drooling all over?!" so much. I once even joked with a friend that if I ever had a baby, she could take care of it until it was about 5 or six, then I'd take over. We laughed about it frequently.
Funny the way things turn out, huh?
When movies and television shows talk about little girls they frequently talk about how they dream of their wedding day. The imaginary girls picture their dress, the flowers, the music, the location, the bouquet toss. I wasn't like that. I thought I would likely get married some day, and that would be cool. But mostly I imagined parenthood. I wanted to be a mommie, and for many reasons. I wanted to pass along the same excellent parenting my parents gave me. I wanted to have that connection that I had with my parents. I wanted to have little Nickeys to bring up to see the beauty of the world.
But mostly I wanted to be a parent because I saw how other people just really sucked at it. It all started when my chain-smoking-while-pregnant sister, Diane, gave birth to my niece, Sarah. Even at 10 years old I could see the mistakes Diane was making (besides the chain smoking). The most drastic mistake, though, was when Nate was born. Suddenly, Diane started ignoring Sarah in favor of Nate. She even admitted that she didn't like Sarah, even though she loved her; Sarah was about 3 at the time. I couldn't believe my ears when Diane told me this, and I privately vowed that I would be so much better to my kids when I had them. I tried to be the best Aunt Ni-ni I could be to Sarah, but I really wished she was my own kid, even as only a little kid myself. I knew that I could do better.
Time went on. I grew up and went to college. I got married and stopped going to college. I returned to school and then got divorced. I opened a business. And I met Joe. Instantly, even though he already had kids and was working through his own issues, I knew that this was the man I wanted to be the father of my children. Before we were together a year we had already picked a boy's name and a girl's name - Oliver Mitchell and Milana Joan. We would observe other kids and other parents and talk about how we would do things differently. We would raise our children to be accepting and loving of all people, no matter their gender, skin color, sexual preference or occupation. We would equally reprimand wrongs and encourage strengths. With the exception of Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, we agreed on every facet of parenting. We even knew that we would likely homeschool our children, at least as long as it remained the best option for them. We had lengthy conversations about how we would deal with sex, drugs, sneaking out, coming out, etc. We covered as many topics as we could come up with, and were able to agree about how we would handle them. The solutions weren't the important issue, though. It was just important that we agreed, and that we knew we would always have each other's back, at least as far as the kid was concerned. Meanwhile, we had his daughter, Emily, every other weekend. As much as we could, we instilled our ideals into her, but only so far as her very controlling mother would let us (another story for another entry). Naive as it may be to say, we had it figured out. So when we were ready, we decided to stop trying to NOT have a kid. That was four years ago.
About three years ago we moved here to Festus. Soon afterward the post-high school kids whom we considered friends started hanging out at our house more often. Every summer, during the theatre camp that I music direct, more kids would befriend us and ask if they could hang out. Sometimes they didn't even ask...they just showed up. We were cool with that. As long as their parents knew they were here, and that they were also welcome to be here (although none have taken us up on the offer, as yet) we didn't care. At first the kids (all in high school) just wanted something to do, somewhere to go besides home. So they would hang out, not really caring much why.
Eventually, all the younger people hanging out here would talk about problems at home and at school. At first it just seemed to be little things (my parents aren't being fair! school sucks!), but conversations evolved into deeper issues. We realized very quickly that there are a LOT more inept parents out there than we had thought. It's not just about what the kids say about their parents, which we take with hefty grains of salt. It was the ways we saw their parents behave. As yet, we haven't had a kid here who has been abused, but there are a lot of ways to mess up your kids than just to abuse them. The most common problems these kids have are neglect and inconsistency.
Before our experiences with the kids down here, I would have thought that these issues wouldn't affect teens so much. They're pretty independent by then, right? Not independent enough, though. They still need consistent boundaries, they need to be pointed in the right direction, they need to be told what they did wrong, why it's wrong and what they need to do to make things right. Little things like when to be home (which some parents constantly change), how to order take-out for a group, using a coaster, throwing away one's own trash. It's almost like some parents are amazingly attentive to the point of coddling, right up until the kid is a teenager, and then they expect the kid to instantly be responsible for their whole lives. I don't think they all started out being bad parents; they might not even be really bad, on the whole. It's just like they couldn't figure out how to turn a child into an adult, so they just gave up. And apparently, now Joe and I are teaching them how to gradually be adults. Some of them are going to be ok; some of them need some therapy to deal with feeling like their parents don't love them any more. I'm sure their parents DO love them. But maybe they're kind of like Diane, and don't know how to like the people their kids are becoming. I don't know, because their parents have never shown enough interest to even have a conversation with us about how their kid is doing. We tried, sure, but it's not really our responsibility. We just do what we can, and take the kid's word for it with whatever issue he/she is having because we have no other side with which to compare it.
In two days Emily will be coming here to live with us. Permanently. I'm so excited I could almost cry. After six years of being her pseudo-step-parent, it's amazingly overwhelming. But it's almost the same as the other situation. We're going to be raising someone who's already half-raised. We have to undo some bad habits, instill good ones, and all with love and consideration. WE have to be the ones to make sure she's going to be as amazing an adult as she is a 10-year-old.
It all comes back to Sarah, though. Instead of starting from the beginning, instead of being a life-giving mother, I'm stepping in (pun intended) halfway, raising someone else's kid. Whether it's Emily or one of our ever-growing set of adults-in-the-making, it's still only half a job. And it's daunting.
I've never been good with babies; they're confusing and kind of boring. You can only go "ooooh, isn't he so cute, drooling all over?!" so much. I once even joked with a friend that if I ever had a baby, she could take care of it until it was about 5 or six, then I'd take over. We laughed about it frequently.
Funny the way things turn out, huh?