Gahhhhhhhh!!!!!

Just now, another door-to-door salesman type guy took one look at me as I answered the door and immediately asked for my mom or dad.

And this time I had makeup on!!!!

Do I really look that young??? I'm 28, for Pete's sake!!!

*sigh*

Since I love to read, I also love to get magazines. I have quite a few I receive in the mail, and since I have a young daughter, one or two of them are parenting magazines. The last issue had a little factoid off to the side of one of the articles stating that parents in the 1960s spent less time with their kids than parents do now.

Personally I think parents spend too much time with their kids now.

My friend R down the street has a two-year-old son. Every activity she does has something to do with his development. Every day they go someplace new, whether it's to playgroup or a children's museum or some class for him. I think it's great that she is making sure he gets the most out of his childhood, but she's neglected her own self. She focuses so intensely on him that I'm not sure where the real R is anymore.

I have another friend who's got kids in high school. She's always done everything for them, and so now they can't do much on their own. She doesn't like the way they do housework, so she does it all herself. They have to show her their homework when they finish it so she can monitor that it's been done. Her son is doing very poorly in school (his own fault), but she won't let him fail because she's worried about how it will affect him mentally. So she picks up the pieces after him and gets him back on track every time.

I had friends in college that had parents like that. As a result, they were lost when they graduated college. They didn't know how to cook, they didn't know how to do housework, they didn't know how to do laundry. And since they've had everything done for them growing up, they don't want to move out on their own. They want to move back home because it's easiest just to have Mom do everything for them.

My parents were the complete opposite. I didn't even make it on their radar, they were so oblivious. Both of my parents worked growing up, and my dad just isn't keen on kids in general. My mom was so busy trying to raise my brother and work at the same time that she didn't have much time left over. So I was pretty much left to my own devices growing up. I had chores to do, so I know how to do housework now. I had to cook dinner at least once a week to teach me how to cook, so now I know how to plan menus and cook a meal for a family. Because I felt like I couldn't depend on my parents to help me with anything, I did it all myself. No one ever asked me whether my homework was done; I just did it. No one ever asked me if I went to school every day; I just went. If I had a big project to do in school, I never asked my parents for help. I went to the library and figured it out.

I'm not saying that parents ought to ignore their kids. There's a lot of hurt I still deal with as an adult because I felt so abandoned and isolated as a kid. But I think parents ought to step back just a bit. Let your kids reach for something, and if they fail, make that into a lesson too. Wouldn't you rather your kids fail a test at school or something small like that so you can help them learn from it, than fail at a job when they are adults when they've never failed at anything before? How would they handle such a devastating occurrence if they have no experience with failure?

A lot of folks my age have been given everything. "Mommy, I want!" and some don't even care if Mommy goes into debt to buy it for them. A lot of folks my age have a sense of entitlement, that they deserve to live the good life. Part of it, I believe, results from being the center of their parents' attention their whole lives.

I give Grace a lot of attention myself. I have to; she's the only other one here! But at the same time, if I want to spend some time on the computer playing Pogo or reading diaries, I don't feel guilty about taking that time away from her. I think it's healthy for her to figure out how to play by herself. I have her in a playgroup and an art class, but my life sure doesn't revolve around her activities. I hope that Grace will grow up as independently as I did. I think my childhood made me strong enough to deal with being a Navy wife, with being a virtual single mom while Kurt's deployed, with being the "everything" in this family.

And I'm proud of my strength too. It's the major accomplishment in my life, and I just hope Grace is as happy with herself when she's a grown woman.