18+ does not equal "grown up"

Remember when you couldn't wait to turn 18 and basically run away from the control of your "horrible, overbearing parents". Yea, me too. Then I moved out and realized "Oh shit, I can't afford all these bills and juggle work and college too". No, I didn't move back home and continue on with my degree-that's for smart people! Instead I quit college, married an abusive a-hole and proceeded to royally 'F' up the next 10 or so years of my life. Then, newly single again, with 3 young kids and no real way to make a living, I went back to school and got my nursing degree. I sacrificed a lot of sleep for a few years so that my children still felt like a priority in my life by doing all my homework exclusively after they went to bed and I also did all my errand running on my only real day off, Friday, so that by the time I picked my kids up after school, we had all weekend free to play and hang out and cook and eat and watch tv and be silly.
I wanted more for my kids than they're getting now. Not that their lives are horrible, by any means. They certainly have a lot more than some kids. But I still didn't want them to have to struggle for things. I know, it makes them appreciate it more, or rather its supposed to. It actually just seems to turn them into whiny, immature brats, but that's beside the point, sort of. Anyway, I wanted more for them. I didn't want my kids to have to work their way through college or to end up with a ton of debt from it, like I did. Unfortunately, that's the way it's happening with my oldest son, at least. He was a straight A student, headed for Merry Scholarship Land, before he screwed around during his last couple of years of high school and blew his chances of getting said scholarships. Because I was still working part of last year, our tax return shows us as being "too rich" to not provide all this money to him for college. Funny, because with seven kids, what my husband makes does not put us anywhere near the "wealthy" category, and I made a lot less than him when I was working.
Because of all that, my son's working and paying for his own college. I feel a lot of guilt about that. Guilt I probably shouldn't have, but when I'm not laying it on myself, he's laying it on me, mainly because, as much as it pains me to admit it (since I'm the one who raised him almost exclusively) he's a selfish ass most of the time anymore. He's also reckless, inconsiderate, dishonest, immature and irresponsible with everything, though less so with regards to his jobs and his love interest.
The amount of stress I feel, daily, from having to continue raising my now 19 year old, rebellious son, is beyond words. He has the right to vote (and says he did in our most recent election), the potential to be drafted into the military, and the requirement of being legally responsible for himself. Yet, he lives at home, does no chores, spends all of his time either out of the house or holed up in his room, does not socialize with his family, has no regard for his overuse of electric and water supplies, pays no rent, pays for no food (other than what he chooses to buy) or utilities, has a free cell phone, leaves his room in a complete mess, and reminds me often that I said in September that I hoped to give him another $100 on top of the $250 we already gave him for his birthday even though I have not been able to pay for more than one treatment so far for the cancer I have been diagnosed with since July. My husband (who's been helping parent since my oldest son was 12) and I have spoken with him on numerous occasions. We've tried grounding him-that's fun, by the way, grounding a person who legally can walk away from you. However, most recently, we've had to speak with him about his plans to move out of the family home. He might possibly go live with my aunt, nearby, or he might live with my parents or a friend. I don't really wish his presence on anyone at this moment because even if he behaves in a considerate manner initially, he will eventually begin to treat them like shit too. Unless something in him snaps and he changes, and I would be glad for that. At this point, however, the only real solution is probably going to be him moving out of the house, and his slightly younger brother finally getting a room to himself.
He was given sixty days to prove, with his behavior, that he wanted to continue to live in our home. Its been about a month and he's cleaned his bathroom once and loaded the dishwasher a time or two. Meanwhile, there are empty containers of to-go food spread across his floor and desk. Many of my baking dishes sit, unwashed, in bags in his room because he "borrowed" (borrowing without permission equals stealing, yes, I know, Mom) them for one reason or another and did not put them back yet. Our home has become a hotel of sorts, except that we are not making any money off of our messy, disrespectful tenant. Unfortunately, its time to end his 'lease'.
Parenting is a huge inconvenience, the biggest one you'll ever know. The whole reason I began writing this blog is because the world is surrounded with people who seem to expect that parenting would be simple or convenient or that it even should be. It seems however, that beyond parenting being so drastically inconvenient, sometimes the most difficult thing about parenting is to stop doing it. I will always worry about my son and so will my husband. We will always feel a loss at not having him here, the same loss we would have felt had he moved to go to a college far away, the same loss we already feel since he has not, in most ways, been a member of this household for a long time, through his own choosing. We will always be there to emotionally support him and be his back up as much as possible, but with 6 other children in our home, it is unfair for us to allow him to be here, bringing so much negativity and anger into the home. Sometimes the best relationship you can hope for with your adult child is a long distance one. And that, my dears, is the most inconvenient part of parenting: you almost never get what you want from your child. And "grown up" legally almost never means "grown up" mentally and emotionally.

Tantrums are so inconvenient

Kids cry, we’ve all seen it-get over it

It’s a wonder that we aren’t all completely screwed up as adults. We live in a society that is embarrassed by our feelings, be those good or bad. We spend years trying to get our kids to express themselves vocally and then we squash their ability to do so by becoming disgusted with them whenever they do just that.

A five year old subjected to a 45 minute grocery store trip might whine and cry because she is frustrated, bored and tired, but though we, as the parents, force them along for these outings (often out of necessity and/or convenience to ourselves), we blame the child for their feelings and ask or oftentimes demand they reign those in, instead of accepting responbility and their emotions.

Groups of teenage boys often hoot and holler during sporting events and it is widely accepted, but put that cheering inside a hospital for a diagnosis of freedom from cancer and all of the sudden its not appreciated. Why couldn't you cheer along with them instead since obviously grandma kicking cancer's butt should be seen as a victory worth celebrating.

A fourteen year old who’s boyfriend just dumped her for her best friend walks in during a card game with your friends, sniffling with tears streaming down her cheeks. You’ve repeatedly told her you’ll be there for her and she can tell you anything, but instead of welcoming her into your arms for the hug you know she needs, you escort her to another room and attempt to clean her up so that she’s “presentable” to your guests. You then tell her you’ll talk to her when your company leaves.

Why are our emotions so subject to time and place? Why must we participate in being citizens of a society that sees unadulterated shows of emotion as unacceptable or taboo? Who says we need to hide our faces in embarrassment at the public displays of our children's (or our own) emotions?

We made these idiotic rules as a society and we can unmake them. We can choose to decide that a child's emotional wellbeing is much more important than any inconvenience caused by dealing with possibly private matters in a public place. You should not choose to only love your children at home, when you are alone with only them and other family, therefore you should not only accept their feelings as a perfect part of them only when you are home alone with them. 

No one ever really died of embarrassment and if they did, wow...that's just sad. I personally am going to welcome every emotional outburst, be it positive or negative and simply be happy that my children are capable of feeling. I promise to let them be who they are as I guide them toward how to be sensitive, productive, caring, helpful, wonderful members of this F'ed up world in which we live. I challenge you to do the same. You're children will one day thank you for it.

I'm a troublemaker. Come be one with me.

The Era of Lawsuits: That's what this time period will probably become known as when the history books review it period hundreds of years from now. How did we get to a point where we are so interested in making money off of the stupidity or simplicity of others and care so little about fellow human beings. 

You might be thinking, "Okay, that's a valid question, but what does it have to do with parenting?" Well, lucky for you, I'm going to tell you. 

The media poisons everything we know about our environment, our society, parenting, food, health, any subject at all really. Sometimes that poison is actually beneficial to us, as humans, other times it brings us to our knees. Parenting is one of the most hit victims of media poison in this day and age. Everywhere you turn, some commercial or magazine ad or billboard or television show or movie is giving its portrayal of how parenting "is" or how it should be and whether you feel the opinion shown is a good one or not, it is attempting to influence you. 

What To Expect When You're Expecting is the most recent in a string of movies where parents are portrayed as selfish asses who want nothing more than to fit their pregnancies and soon to be children into their schedules and plans. Its as if society wants us to veer so far away from the "barefoot and pregnant" female oppressive structure of the 50's and prior that we are willing to risk injury to our children-both physical and psychological-to get there. 

We vaccinate out children supposedly to keep them healthy even though numerous studies are showing that this has the opposite effect and yet we think nothing of pushing babies out on our own timeline without regard for how this can impact them. Doctors don't tell women everything, and nurses don't do any better after they walk into a room, hand a patient a consent form and stand there waiting for the mother to sign away her rights to keep herself and her baby safe. Why? Because we might offend the doctor or nurse? Because we think we don't know what's right? Because its simply too inconvenient to fight the system that we already allowed to become such a huge and dangerous part of our culture?

F**k that. Be inconvenient. The doctor is put out because he might have to stick around a few hours more waiting on your baby to come out? Oh well. That's his or her problem. You certainly didn't tell them to choose this career. Have your baby at home and you'll likely not inconvenience anyone. You'll rarely find a midwife (especially one doing home births) who will say that the labor is not progressing fast enough when they really mean "I'm late for dinner". If the midwife wants to leave, they'll either get someone in to replace them or they'll just suck it up and deal with it. 

That's right, I am telling you to be inconvenient in your birthing process. I don't mean inconvenience people by making sure that your baby is born with physical problems that require being solved because you convenienced yourself and the medical staff by consenting to that epidural or induction. I'm talking about being inconvenient by asking for what you have fully researched to be the best for birth and for your child. Not blindly listening to the medical staff who have their own agenda. Having worked previously with nurses who have less than adequate ethics, I've seen women be given sleeping medications so that their contractions lighten up and those births don't end up happening on the night shift. Understand that many medical personnel do not care about you or your baby (I'm sure this will raise eyebrows as well as voices, but notice I said "many" not "all") and are primarily interested in doing as little as they possibly can to get through their shift and get closer to another payday. Why? Because they don't want you to inconvenience them. Do it anyway.

I'm also telling you to be inconvenient in your parenting.Other adults are inconvenienced because they might get a glimpse of your breast while you attempt to latch on your screaming infant at a bookstore during the rare occasion you actually made it out of your house? Screw 'em. Besides, everyone will be a whole lot more inconvenienced by the continuous and subsequently louder crying that will occur if you don't feed your child right then and there. In fact, while you're nursing your baby, change their diaper too. Be as inconvenient as possible to those around you so they'll get used to life not revolving around them. The people who are smiling at you as you do this, or who offer to help when you drop said diaper two feet away and can't reach it without unlatching your child are the ones who might be inconveniencing those people again later.

As long as it is what is best for your child, be as inconvenient as possible to yourself and to those who live with you or are ever in the same location as you. The well-being of your child depends on it being inconvenient to others. Join in the inconvenience movement. Let's be inconvenient together!

Inconvenienced by food and kids

Yesterday as I perused the local mega mart (insert generic, overly large store name here) looking for frozen peas for a dish I am making this week, I was overcome by irritation at the lack of frozen vegetables in my supermarket. Where there once was over half an aisle of various frozen veggies (though, sadly, at this particular grocery store, none were ever organic), there is now little more than what fits behind three glass doors worth.
As I searched for peas, I walked by frozen french fries and other potato products and over an aisle and a half of pre-prepared, frozen meals and this does not include pizza or breakfast stuff. Long gone are the droves of stay at home mommies (and even daddies) who lovingly cook for their offspring. Gone are the days when children learned to make food from their parents instead of a high school class where "cooking" equals taking pre-cut cookies and placing them on a baking sheet and putting them in the oven for eight to ten minutes. Aisles upon aisles of frozen items, pizzas, microwaveable meals, breakfast "foods", desserts, breads. Its even hard now to find frozen vegetables that don't come in a microwave ready, "steamer package". (For more info on why you shouldn't expect anything nutritious to come from a microwave, see here)
I live a busy life. I have seven kids who, all but the littlest, are in school and involved in after school activities. I spend the majority of my week running kids to school or from school or sitting at a dance studio or at voice lessons or running errands or helping kids with homework. I am lucky right now to be staying at home with my kids. Its very tough financially to do this, but necessary because of my breast cancer-for more info see my other blog. Despite being a stay at home mom, I don't have tons of free time to make meals and yet my kids eat pre-processed and fast foods type foods probably twice a month at most. I make use of crockpots and soups/stews that take little time to prepare. I make meal plans for the week so I know what I'm doing ahead of time and I change my mind at the last minute if it turns out I'll only have 30 minutes to cook. Between taking kids to school and picking them up, I am usually only home for about 4 1/2 hours max during the week and dinner has to be ready for me to take at least part of it with me when I get kids from school since some of them go immediately to after-school activities (dance mostly). Our food has to hold up to being kept hot for awhile. It has to travel fairly well.
I manage to cook healthily and almost completely from scratch, for nine people (plus a little because leftovers are great the next day) on very limited time, an extremely limited budget and with a toddler at my feet or on my hip. It is completely worth the inconvenience to make sure my and my family's health are priority.
Apparently not all parents in America feel that their children's nutritional needs are worth it. Heaven forbid you might be inconvenienced by having to feed your kids something that someone else didn't make for them.
School lunches are crap, usually and yet kids eat them because their parents can't be inconvenienced enough to get up in the morning and make them something, or do it the night before, or here's a novel idea...teach the  kids how to make their own!
My fridge is full of fresh fruits, some cut, some whole, cooked pastas and rice (I cooked them), veggies that are easily placed into containers, salad fixings ready to go, boiled eggs and more. The cabinets are full of the small amount of pre-packaged foods I buy: canned salmon and beans, crackers (organic, thank you), fruit leathers and other dried fruits, cereals (no high sugar stuff here), dehydrated veggies and other similar things. Its very easy for all but my kindergartener to fix their own lunch without direction or help.
Good food is one of the best gifts you can give your child and its one that you should require yourself to give them. So get off your ass and cook something. If you don't know how, learn and teach your kids at the same time; that way, when you are out of the house, they can still eat healthfully without your help. Preparing meals for my children is an inconvenience with which I am glad to be stuck.

Some people should have been born sterile

There are people all over this world who have difficulty conceiving children of their own. Many of them are completely ignorant and go on to have expensive and usually truly unnecessary fertility treatments. Many more, the informed ones, go on to adopt, an even more expensive, but necessary option. I never had any real, long term issues with fertility and so with the blended family of my husband and I (his, mine, ours kind of thing), there are seven children we have or are still raising. I do not, by any means, count myself as a parenting expert, I simply have a strong opinion of irritation at people who, often from pregnancy, treat children as if they should fit into their parents' lives as opposed to the reality, which is that you will never be more inconvenienced than by the pitter patter of little, or big, feet in your house.
From the time my first son was born, when I was 21 years old, I knew he would turn my life upside down. I knew he would become my world and everything else would suddenly be less important. I went on to have two more children before I became a single mother for five years and then, with my second marriage, I bore two more beautiful little parasites. I gave up my life, my dreams, sleep, food at times (when times were really hard), money, time, everything so that they could have what they needed. I spared no expense of myself. I knew it was what was right, as a parent.
I see so many other parents who seem to think that children should be brought into the world on their parents' timelines, when it is convenient to the adults in the situation. Doctors want babies to be born on schedule, and will put mom and baby at risk, with inductions and medications, so that they can get home to their families by dinnertime. Parents want babies to come on schedule so that mom can make her sister-in-law's wedding, or so that dad can get back to work before the work load increases. Families want babies to come on schedule so they know when they should come into town. None of this is on the baby's schedule and none of it is for the good of the infant. Babies and children are an inconvenience from the time they are conceived, sometimes from the time you begin to think of conceiving them.
Children will create a huge disruption in your life. A beautiful, wonderful, aggravating, silly, frustrating, embarrassing, inconvenient disruption in your life. Get over it. Decide to love every intolerable minute of it before they grow up and you're left with a huge void that only a huge inconvenience can fill.