#52 Stories--Story # 30

Which parts of your mother's parenting style did you adopt?

I wish I could say I did everything like my mom.  I think she was--an continues to be--a brilliant parent. I hope I did enough things for my kids like she did  for me and my sister.

I think I tried to teach some personal discipline early--I used any method that worked with each kid.  Spanking had little to no affect on my daughter--in fact she would glare at me and tell me "didn't hurt". To avoid beating her little sweet bum within a n inch of her life at time, I took to removal of privileges with her.  Not that that worked all the great either. She was a "strong willed" child, I later learned the classification from a parenting /child psychology book I finally bought and read before one of us was locked up.

Meanwhile, my son, was a much more tender-hearted guy and even a cross look to him was the end of the world. He really didn't want to displease me--at least when he was young.  He grew more and more macho as he got older, but deep down he is still a tender-hearted, very compassionate, caring young man. I couldn't understand HOW I got two kids that were not a single bit alike to raise.

Then I remembered that I needed to be the one learning--as much as I was teaching them.  I am not sure if that was a pearl of wisdom my mom finally shared or if I had to figure it out myself, but I still have to purposely stop and understand what I need to learn from them when ever they do something that I don't understand.  this is a lifelong goal--the understanding--but I am making baby steps, all the while realizing that I just really need to love them and make sure they know I do.

I know my mom told me that she would talk to us as infants as though we were understanding everything.  I recall very specifically having The Girl in her car seat in the family room, while I was ironing Genius Golfer's dress shirt for work, and I was telling The Girl in great detail what I was doing:  "This is a sleeve.  It goes on daddy's arm.  There are two sleeves in a shirt.  You have a shirt on too, but you have only short sleeves.  This is a long sleeve shirt. See how the sleeve will reach all the way to daddy's hands?"

Now, I don't know if that helped me to be more verbal or not as a baby--my mom told me when I did start talking I was talking in sentences like a I was a teenager.  Well, I saw the same things in The Girl.  She was VERY verbal, right from the start.  The Boy didn't have as much chance--though I did still try to do the same for him. The Girl spoke for him a lot of the time.  Also, I had a very difficult post partum period with his birth--depression that took two years or so to combat and overcome.  Consequently I don't remember things much from when he was very small--at least on my own.  Luckily I wrote things on his baby calendar and tried to write a journal, but I wasn't very good because of my disconnect with life in the depression.

I also followed my mom's example by letting the kids try things they wanted to do.  I didn't like big messes--I think she was the same way--but sometimes those things had to happen for them to experience things. Messy things were not my favorites.  I think back now and wish I'd have let so much more go when the kids were little--like housekeeping stuff.  I should have played with them more.  GG was always VERY good about that.  And they loved him for it even more.  I think my mo has similar sentiments.

I have always said that if I could be even half the mother mom my was, I would be a success. I'm not there yet, but I am a mother of two pretty wonderful kids. Maybe I just didn't screw them up too badly.  If that is true, I guess I am like my mom.