What Was Her Mother Thinking???

Jim and I were watching Good Morning America this morning, and they had some “boy band” on singing their latest hit. The name of the band doesn’t matter. And of course, there was a throng of screaming girls standing outside the studio, waving signs and looking as if they might swoon if one of those little boys walked up. The news personality or whatever it is they call them nowadays, was interviewing some of those little girls. She asked one of them how old she was, and the reply was “Eight.” Eight years old!!!

What is the mother of that girl thinking? I wondered how that little girl even knew about the band. I wondered why her mother (or her father) would take her to downtown New York to stand outside in the cold waiting to catch a glimpse of a boy band. I was shocked, thinking that when MY girls were eight years old, they wanted to be Brownies, they wanted to play on the girls’ softball team, they wanted to help me in the kitchen. IF they had a favorite singer, it was probably Kermit the Frog, singing that song about the Rainbow.

I know I am not that old, and that I am not that much of a fuddy duddy. When my daughters, who are 33 and 34 years old now, were growing up, I made sure they were dressed appropriately when they left the house. If they wanted to go to their friend Katie’s house down the street to play in the sprinkler, they were not allowed to walk down the street in their bathing suits. I didn’t let them walk to the store by themselves.

I never dropped them off at the mall. If they went to the mall, it was with me. I did not then nor do I now think that the mall is a place to socialize. It is a place to shop. With your mother. And if they went to the movies, I went with them, and sat in the same row as they did. They were not allowed to go on dates with boys until they were sixteen years old, and then they had a curfew of 10:00 p.m. And the boy had to come inside the house when they came to pick them up. And a couple of times in their dating careers, I said “absolutely not” to letting them go out with the young man when I met him. One was thrown physically out of my house for being disrespectful to my daughter in front of me.

Both of my daughters still love me and consider me to be their hero. And, they grew up to be successful, well-adjusted, happy members of society. One was an art teacher at a school for children with learning disabilities and is now assistant manager of a well-known high-end retail store; the other is a biology and special education teacher at a high school.

So, I really did find myself wondering if this little girl’s mother is using any common sense at all. If so, why is she encouraging such an obsession in a child so young? Is she living her own dreams through her child? Is she trying to give her darling daughter everything she thinks she wants?

Sometimes, I think kids ask for things they don’t really want, just to please their peers, and are hoping fervently inside that their parents will say NO. Maybe this child just wanted her mom to say no, so she could tell her friend she asked and her mom wouldn’t let her go. But sometimes, we as parents read the signals all wrong, and or we THINK this is what our child really wants, or we say YES to the most ridiculous requests because it was something we wanted when we were that age and were denied by our parents. I’m here to tell ya, folks, that just because your kid wants it, doesn’t mean they need it. And just because you CAN give them whatever it is that they want, doesn’t always mean you SHOULD. If you give them their little rock stars when they are eight, what are you going to be giving them when they are sixteen?

Brothers and Sisters

This is the latest portrait of my FabGrandchildren, Michael and Sarah. Michael lives in Maryland at Andrews Air Force Base with their father and step-mother. Sarah lives in Seattle, Washington with their mother and step-father. Sarah came to Maryland for two weeks, then Michael flew with her to Seattle for two weeks. While they were together in Seattle, their mother, my ex-daughter-in-law, took them to have their picture taken. I must say that I think that photographer has a good sense of humor!

Crazy Dreams

I don’t usually write about my dreams because I rarely ever dream, or, if I do, I don’t remember them. But last night I went to bed with a terrible headache, so early after coming in from work that Jim was concerned about me. I didn’t even turn on the computer to read my e-mail. I was that sick. So, with apologies to the real people in my family who are in this story, sorry, it was just a dream.

In the dream I had last night, I was walking down the street I lived on when I was in the eighth grade, with my best friend from eighth grade. The road looked like it did then, and I looked like I did then, but my friend looked like she looks now. As a matter of fact, everything in the dream looked like it did then, except her. This is sort of what I looked like then:

We came to a place in the road where a rose bush had grown over the road, and we had to walk through it to get to where we were going. As we walked through it, the thorns on the rosebush snagged on my clothing. Donna, my friend, was helping me get untangled from the thorns. I reached for one of the canes of the rosebush, and got about 20 thorns stuck in my thumb. I said to her, “I need a tweezer to get these out.” 

So, we went to my mother’s house, which looked on the outside like it looked when I was in the eighth grade. Except, that when we walked up on the carport, instead of a regular door like my mother has, there was a sliding glass door there. The whole inside of the house was crammed with furniture, so much that my mother, who looked like she looked when I was in the eighth grade, had to move a little round wooden table so that Donna and I could slip in sideways to get into the house. 

Once inside the house, I asked my mother for a tweezer. She said there was one in the bathroom. So, I went into the bathroom. In the bathroom, I noticed that it was pouring down rain outside, and the ceiling of the bathroom was leaking, so much that there was a huge puddle of water on the floor. I also noticed that someone had re-tiled the bathroom with a beautiful tile pattern. I wondered to myself in the dream why someone would re-tile the floor but leave the roof to leak so much. I looked in the medicine cabinet for a tweezer, but there was not one there. 

I went back out to the living area, where I noticed that the ceiling was leaking heavily in there, too. I told my mother that there was no tweezer in the bathroom. She then said, “Well, if you had asked me I would have told you there was one on that little table by the door.” The one she moved so we could get in. I walked over there and got the tweezer and picked the thorns out of my thumb.

Then, I asked my mother why she had not had her roof repaired. She said, “I asked Seth to do it, and he said he would, but Dick got mad at me because I asked Seth to do it, so I told Seth not to do it, and Dick never came to do it after that.” (Seth is my son, who was not even thought of when I was in the eighth grade, and Dick is my older brother) And I said, “Well, Seth knows how to do it, and I will call him right now to come over and fix that roof.” End of dream.

So, if anyone has a clue what this all means, please let me know.