Parent Fail

I have come to the conclusion that on the whole…I can handle the mechanics of parenting just fine. Poop and puke in all it’s shapes, forms and volumes really don’t bother me that much.

I will also say, despite the state of my house and whatever my MOM will say on the subject, that I can handle all the basics in keeping babies and children alive.

I can dress the suckers, feed em, and make them fairly presentable. I also do remember to bathe them on occasion too.

Just because my home looks like something from a TLC reality drama does not mean that I do try to keep things clicking along.

Really, I do.

I can ‘do’ babies no problem. Feed em, dress em, hug em and love em. Forgive them for never sleeping and stick a silly smile on your rough and wretched face.

When they start talking back is when I have noticed that my skills seem to lack.

Now that my kids are school agers, things tend to get more heated around here. Authority is questioned a lot around here, and frankly, I don’t blame them. Would you take ME seriously? No.

The attitude around here from the shorter members of the family seems to be of total superiority over the taller members. While they admit to loving us and thinking we are great (heck, Caity has me roped into her Ninja Destroy Santa Plan when she is 20) and funny and so on….figures to fear we are not.

And yes yes blah blah blah, parents shouldn’t be feared. But kids SHOULD have fear of consequences and consequences when you are a kid USUALLY entails SOMETHING to do with pissing your parents of and the fall out from that.

My kids couldn’t give a rats ass about what consequences there are.
I have said before…Caity should be recruited by the CIA..she will NOT break under torture. I think she could probably fool a polygraph too. I am not kidding.

To the kids….us parents are just foolish minions with wallets.

We try reason. We try feel good touch feely new parenty psycho babble about feelings and trust and team work and you can see their eyes glaze over.

We try the old school YOU WILL BE PUNISHED FOR THIS INFRACTION.

They roll their eyes and shrug it off.

We take away tv, we take away toys, video games you name it.

They may moan and groan about it…but instead of trying to FIX things…to talk about the behavior…they just endure their time away from their precious toys and celebrate their reunion with them.

WTF!???

I am remembering now why I never really ‘liked’ kids until I had my own!

I do realize that there is a TON of ‘help out there for parents to find. All sorts of parenting classes, books etc..but I did that.

I think it boils down to personality. I am not and my husband is not a parental figure really…We try….we LOVE our kids…we ADORE being parents…but I really think we are doing it wrong.

Not wrong enough to mess them up…I think they are amazing kids and their strength of personality and bloody mindedness will do them just fine into the adult years.

But I will have a heart attack if I cannot come up with some sort of plan to just once in a while get them to LISTEN and DO WHAT I HAVE ASKED before I have turned purple.