Someone once advised me that there was “no blueprint for parenting” and that I would make plenty of wrong turns. I should be okay with that, he said, and just do my best.
Well, I’m not okay with the mistakes I’ve made; they have had long-term, maddening repercussions for me, and they were rookie errors that no seasoned parent or book ever warned me about. (I’ll always be bitter about that.)
If I could go back in time, I definitely would NOT
1. Let my kids control the radio station. How did I let this happen after endless years of The Wiggles’ “Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy”? I learned nothing. Once the kids and their horrible taste in music moved to the front seat, I could have laid down the law, but I didn’t. I will never fully recover from two confusing years of devout Christian rock and Kpop, combined with lyrics like “So now they both dead and you slash your throat.” I created my own hell.
2. Drop the f-bomb in front of a couple tattletales. I had just explained to them that the f-word was a “nasty, nasty word said by nasty, nasty people.” No joke: within 30 seconds, I gingerly tapped a glass bottle with a stuck lid on the counter, and shards, Pace Picante—and that “nasty, nasty word”—went flying everywhere. Those two little narcs immediately snitched to their friends, their father and their grandmother. Now, if I try to correct their foul mouths, they play the hypocrisy card. And my mother’s decade-long, very tedious reminder regarding being a “good example for the children”? IT. WILL. NOT. END. I hate f#@&ing salsa.
3. Pick them up on time. I have always been a little paranoid about my children being abducted, but, really, what’s the probability of a 5’9”, 180 lb 12-year-old and a 15-year-old muscled, weight-lifting maniac being shoved into a windowless van in the 60 seconds before I pull up? By being compulsively on time, I have created two indignant, impatient, and annoyingly judgey commuters. Two minutes late and my cell phone blows up with questions about my location and arrival time, insinuations that I have been whiling away the time on my personal chaise with a frothy latte and a Vogue. (Do they have someone stalking me or what??!) I really need to change my cell number.
4. Tell them the truth so dang often. Too many years I spent living by the misguided idea that honesty is the best policy. Think of the time I wasted shuttling them to the mall, when I could have easily said that it was closed on weekends! And is there really any sane reason to admit eating their Halloween candy, when I could have diverted the blame to any other family member? The Ten Commandments direct us not to “bear false witness against thy neighbor,” but my spawn and I reside in the same structure, which very literally makes them not my neighbor.
I should have another baby. This time, I’d do less laundry, burn more grilled cheeses, and hide Goodnight Moon.
But I’m 51 now, and these mummified fallopians have turned to dust, plus no one in their right mind would let me adopt a baby just to right the wrongs of the past. But, I am convinced that an experimental child could essentially erase my first couple misguided attempts and make everybody (ahem…mostly me) happy, satisfied that “there’s no blueprint for parenting” and that I certainly did my best.
Susie is a mom who is “trying to get it right” and who ends up saying sorry a lot (because it’s the right thing to do and it gets her kids off her back). She writes about the things she knows (so far): parenting, mental health, with a smidge of politics thrown in. You can find more of her writing under Susie Bonzo at https://m.facebook.com/susie.bonzo?tsid=0.02644151746690382&source=result
