Parenting

    
    During my meandering about the web today I again reviewed my lovely Daughters blog site.  She is a rather gifted wordsmith, and while I will admit to a small amount of parental bias, I think she is hilarious. 

     Her latest offering covered the difficulties in being the new acting stepmother for a young boy who is absolutely all "boy".  Up till now she has had more than a little success being the adult playmate to any number of children.  She plays that particular roll well.  Playmate and buddy are fun rolls.  She had never had to play that other roll of parent....... that of disciplinarian. 

    Ahhhh, how easy is the roll of buddy, and just how damned difficult it is to be both playmate and compassionate supervisor.  Loving discipline is a damned difficult knife edge to navigate....... even with children you have had several years to bond with.  Friendship with your children is not hardly possible when you have to play the roll of disciplinarian.  But always, and I mean always, is there that hope and desire that eventually............... you and they might reach a point where you might be involved in one an others life's.  Not controlling anymore, just involved.  You know, ............ friends.

      After that first initial bonding (which covers the period from birth to when the children learn to walk and talk) there are several years of challenges.  There are all the usual stages of the children defining themselves.  The child hears "NO" enough that they spend, at a minimum,  most of a year when that is their primary response to whatever is suggested or demanded.  They need to find their way, and keeping them from serious damage (whether physical or emotional) while they muddle their way to adulthood makes the lunar program look like a walk in the park. 

     There is a period of youth where the ability to be still is an impossibility.  I suspect that crack cocaine causes the same kind of endless energy in adults.  So.............. imagine a midget crack addict in your house and you have some idea as to what a certain amount of child rearing entails.

     I suspect that is why children are so damned cute when they first come into the world.  They are relatively easy to take care of, they are lovable, and they engage in almost no behavior that might drive one to consider offing ones offspring (well, if you discount the loss of sleep).  You need that memory to carry you through the next 18 or so years.  People with short memmories should not attempt to raise children.  Maybe that is why most of the really successful child rearing households I know have lots of baby pictures in constant view.  In any of an endless parade of instances that make you wish that your offspring had come into the world as 23 year olds with a college education and a job, at the moment of utmost stress, a quick glance at their baby picture (when you looked at them and melted) will keep you from going into the gun case.

     So, my loving Daughter discovered she does not have endless patience.  I think she was surprised by the challenges that come with parenting.  She has seen (and I hope enjoyed) the rewards of making it through to a place and time you can call a parent "my friend".  She comes from a family that has several examples of just such relationships.  She also comes from a family that confirms the ugly truth that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, there are some individuals that no amount of concerned and loving parenting is able to help.  Sometimes, despite all your love and dedicated hard work there is a child who becomes an adult that you will never have a relationship with. 

     No guarantees, but the rewards are perhaps some of the greatest returns on investment life offers.

     Oh, my daughter did not cause any permanent damage to my grandson.  No, she just discovered that frustration and a child coming down off of a sugar high (or any of a million other possible causes for a child to suddenly loose the ability to "listen") can cause you to momentarily loose your ability to control your temper, or what comes out of your mouth.  She smacked a little boys butt....... maybe to firmly, and I think the realization that sometimes there might be satisfaction in that action hurt her.  A terrible but essential lesson.  Never discipline when it is even a little about your anger.  Only to modify a little ones behavior should you discipline..... and trust me, the little one will guide you into finding just what is the best way to do that.  Often it is not a swat on the butt.  For those going through the "endless energy" stage, a few minutes sitting quietly can seem like years in purgutory.  For others (if you have had any success in garnering their respect), a simple statement of "You dissappointed me" can be a fate worse than the worst the inquisition ever had in its arsenal of torture. 

     If there is any solace, I seem to remember from a college anatomy class that there are no life governing organs in the vicinity of the butt.  It is not hardly possible to do any damage smacking a little ones buttocks (excepting to your own heart).  Again, I am reminded of a very wise and loving father saying to me "This hurts me more than it does you....".

     It should.