Tough Love

   Today in the checkstand I overheard a conversation that was pretty private; this actually happens quite often because there are a lot of people who tend to treat checkers rather like furniture, forgetting that we are living, breathing human beings with ears to hear with. Usually what I am privy to is a bunch of mind-melting gossip about who is cheating on who, who is in jail, who got out of jail, who is knocked up, and so-on and so-forth. Not really stuff I give a rat's ass about.
   The woman who caught my attention today was somewhat different. This was the type of conversation that you shouldn't have in public, but sometimes stress gets to us rather imperfect human beings, and we say things when we shouldn't be saying them. Maybe there was a reason that the mom felt she needed to have this conversation right that moment. Maybe she was just heart sore and too tired to think about what she was saying. But before you read further, I just want to say that I am not posting this in order to pick on her. I think she is a strong woman, and I wanted to share her strength.
   This is what I heard, a conversation between a mother and her grown but young daughter:
   "You need to go to treatment. 30 days. I want you in there for thirty days."
    "I don't need treatment. I just need to get a job."
   "You need treatment. You have got to get treatment. I will pay  for it. I will pay for everything, but you have to be there, for 30 days."
   " I don't have a problem. I just need a job. I'll be fine if I can get a job."
   "You will not be fine! You need to get clean. I can't believe you started doing dope. You are fucking your life up. You have got to get treatment."
   "I don't have a problem. I just need a job."
   "Then prove me wrong. Go for 30 days. When you get back, we will renegotiate. We can talk about all this other stuff once you've been."
   "I'm not going. I just need a job."
   "I am offering to help you and you are just refusing to be helped. You are throwing your life away and I am not going to watch. You will get treatment if you want to stay with me."
    And about this time I had collected the money and they were off and I will never know if this woman took her mother's advice and went to rehab or not. You may be wondering why I have even posted this; why would I put this up on my blog?  I posted this because I wanted to say that I think this mother is doing a really wonderful thing. I think that her daughter has a better chance of recovering because she has a mother that insists on her getting the professional help that she needs. I put this up because I think this mother was also doing one of the hardest things a mother is called to do - showing her child tough love.
   As mothers, we never want to think that our children can make mistakes - sometimes terrible ones. To me, the easier route for this situation would be for the mom to say something like, "I know that you have hit hard times. So get a job and see if you can straighten yourself out. I am sure that this problem is just because you have had a hard time lately." I see a lot of people say similar things to their loved ones every day.
   This mom isn't doing that. She is saying, "You are fucking up your life. I love you, but you are going to fix this problem so that you can get your life back." Maybe that seems harsh, but we have all made bad choices before, and isn't repairing the damage from those choices always hard and harsh? We all have to pay the piper. This mom, it seems to me, is going to do her best to get her daughter to pay the piper before the cost is truly sky-high. She is not going to excuse or enable, she is going to face reality and dish out her own brand of tough love. I truly, truly applaud that, because to me, that seems like a hard road to take. I shudder to think that maybe one day I too might have to make a similar choice, but as parents, this is one thing that we all might one day face. We all like to think that the little walking, talking miracles that we gave birth to and nurtured and raised will be prefect, but no one is truly perfect. The best person in the world can screw up and make bad choices. Seems to me like this girl might have the right kind of help needed to correct those screw ups. Of course, she has to be willing to take the help, but she will never be in the position to say that help wasn't offered.
   And so that is why I shared that particular conversation. Because to me, this is an example of parenting done right, and one example that I hope I am never called on to copy. But if that dark day ever does come, I  also hope I can be as strong as this mom seemed to be, and demand that my daughter face the music and fix what needs to be fixed. 

Mom Versus Mom: Just Plain Wrong

   There are a lot of opinions out there about what style of mommyhood is the best. We all have opinions about what is better for the kiddos, what is harder on the mom, what is better for society, and so-on and so-forth. And having your own opinion is good, because you need that to decide what is best for your child, yourself, and your family. But society doesn't just stop at having an opinion. They have to hold a competition; a competition so fierce that we find ourselves jumping down each other's throats to decide which moms have the harder job, and the even more disturbing conclusion that some people are not taking the proper care of their children because of the lifestyle they had. I know that I have had people get in my face about both being a single mom and about working, saying that my choices have hurt my daughter.
   Here's the parenting issue the way I see it, because I have played mom in every style; I was a stay-at-home mom once, I'm now a working mom, I had a parenting partner with my daughter's father until that went south, and I'm now a single parent. There are variations to each of these styles, but I have at least some form of experience in all the basic styles that I have listed, and from what I can tell, being a mom is a hard job no matter what style of parenting you choose. And unless you are doing something like beating your child with a brick and/or telling them things like they are worthless, then there is no wrong way to parent. (If you are abusing your child, then I hope karma tears your throat out.) Let me explain this, from my own experiences.
Stay-at-home mom: You never get a break, or a vacation, or a lunch - shit- you can't even take a shit by yourself. Your adult interactions become very limited, you may have a good partner and loyal friends and family, but a lot of your day is spent talking to kids. You don't earn a salary and thus have to depend on someone else to earn it. You have to listen to bullshit cracks about eating bon-bons and watching daytime TV. You are often taken for granted and never get a raise or promotion. No sleep ever.
Working Mom: You have to leave your kids with someone else. You may get away for a while, but all the chores are waiting for you when you get home. You are going to miss important stuff while you are at work. You are losing your hair from worrying about your kid while you are at work. You get in trouble for calling out when your kid is sick, which happens all the time because daycare/school incubates germs. People try to shame you for not staying home with the kids and putting them in daycare. No sleep ever.
Single Mom: All the bills are on you. You either have to leave your kid and get a job, and be judged for that, or get on assistance programs and stay home with your kid, and be judged for that. You have to take care of every little problem that arises, from sick kids, to trouble at school/daycare. You are both mom and dad. People like to judge you- a lot, and a lot of people out there equate single mothers as women with loose morals, which is neither fair nor true. No sleep ever.
Duel Parents: You have to compromise about how to raise your kid. Just because you have help doesn't mean you aren't going to get overwhelmed with parenting stuff. You are going to be judged and held accountable for every little disagreement that you have in front of the kids. The lack of sleep, stress of raising a kid, and disagreements about how to raise your kid can cause tension in your relationship - and people are going to judge you for that too. No sleep ever.
   Of course, these cover the effects on the mom and not the child, some would say. However, a happy home strongly influences the children in question. Shortly after I became a single parent, my daughter made the statement that even though there were some people she missed, she was happy we moved (from Florida to Washington) because I didn't cry anymore. In our old home, she had gotten to the point where she panicked whenever I was out of her sight. In my single parent home, she became more independent, more outgoing. After seven years of being a single parent, my daughter is in the GATE (gifted and talented education) program, and has been these last three years. She is a green belt (with a black stripe) in karate. She is popular in school and though a little shy in new situations, becomes engaged and shows her zany, friendly, sunny side to people quickly once she is used to them. I make sure that we get our quality time together, and all signs indicate that I have made the right choice for her. Does this mean that every mom should make my choice? No; I am in no way saying that my choice is the only choice for everybody. My choice wouldn't be right for many of you, but based on the circumstances of my life, my choice was the best for us, so who has a right to judge me for those choices? The way  I see things, nobody has that right.
  There are going to be cons in every style of raising a child -- but this does not mean that one is better than the other. They all have their pros too, and being a mom is rewarding no matter how you are pulling your mommyhood off. Every mother makes the decision on what she needs to do -- stay at home, work, be single, be with a partner -- based on the circumstances and variables of her life. The decision that one woman makes would not be right for another woman, because her life is different. But the things that are the same is that we are all moms trying to do what is best for our kids and make better lives for them. So why are we being so judgmental, so competitive about  who is better? Why aren't we banding together and telling the rest of the not-moms who are judging us to piss off? If we could get along, and help each other out, those judgey-judgersons out there would have a hell of a time pulling us down, but we are doing their work for them, by being at each other's throats and trying to put one choice above the other. It's wrong. We are a sisterhood of mothers, and we should have each other's backs.