I'm Not Raising A Princess; I'm Raising A Real Woman

   We're living in a strange, strange world these days. There's no accountability for your own actions and/or choices, everybody is entitled to everything, and in order to be a good mom, you have to raise your kids with the expectations that they will get everything that they want, without even trying, without earning it. Discipline is a thing of the past; barbarians - those are the people who discipline their kids.
   I don't know, but to me, that's just a bunch of bullshit. If you've been reading my blog at all, you know that I can be the overprotective mom, the hovering helicopter who freaks if her kids sneezes. But if you read my blog at all, you also know that I do my best to squish that shit. Why? Because I want my daughter to be able to function in society. Because when she grows up, I don't want her going into shock when she is faced with the real world. And what is the real world? Well I can tell you what it's not right now, and one thing it's not is fair, that's for damn sure, and it's not a free ride either.
   She needs to be able to know how to handle that shit. When she goes to apply for a job, and doesn't get the position, she needs to understand that jobs aren't handed out for 'effort'. You have to be qualified as well; you have to earn that shit. And if she's passed over for someone more qualified than she is, she needs to know that it's not okay to have an epic meltdown and shiver in her room under her covers for a week because she feels that she's 'not respected.' What she needs to know how to do is to get up off her ass and go after another job. Get knocked down six times, get back up seven. She needs to get her ass over to another employer, work her ass off, prove her worth, earn her respect, and make that employer who didn't hire her regret that they didn't realize her potential. She is not going to do that hiding in her room, whimpering that the world's not fair.
   She needs to know that she is responsible for her own choices. She needs to know that if she goes out and parties all night, and does poorly at that job she just worked her ass off to get, that she is going to get fired. She also needs to know that under those circumstances, she will deserve to get fired, because she made bad choices. She needs to be accountable for her bad choice, and learn from that mistake so that it never happens again (although I'm hoping it never happens in the first place, personally.)
   She also needs to know that sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes you get fired just because your boss doesn't like you, sometimes you lose a loved one to a disease or accident, sometimes you get sick yourself, whatever the case may be, bad things happen. And when bad things happen, you do have a right to grieve and be angry and disillusioned, but you also have to keep pushing forward. She has to have the gumption and willpower to keep moving forward, to keep trying. You never move forward if you don't keep walking.
    She also needs to know that life isn't a fairy tale. There isn't going to be a prince on a white horse, who comes in, saves her and carries her to his castle where she lives happily ever after. That's not to say that there is not love, but she needs to know that love is work as well. Love is hard, and you cry just as much as you laugh, because that's life, and a guy can be the greatest guy in the world, but he's still human. He's going to screw up. He's also going to be normal. He's going to pick his nose, fart, belch, and be real. Prince Charming is only charming because he's not real. That doesn't mean that she needs to put up with abuse or mistreatment, but it does mean that she needs to compromise and understand he is going to mess up, and she needs to acknowledge that she is going to mess up as well.
   And what does her learning all this entail? What goes into teaching a child these values? Well, it takes teaching her accountability at an early age. It takes teaching her that there are consequences to her choices. Teaching her these things means making her take care of her responsibilities and teaching her to learn from her mistakes. It means teaching her that she isn't some princess who is going to be handed every thing she wants, or even needs, in life, and it means that there has got to be some discipline up in this house. If she chooses not to do her homework, she's grounded. See if she forgets to do homework when that's the only thing she CAN do for a week. Disrespectful to mom? Well, my mom used to wash my mouth out with soap when I was a kid too. In fact, my mom would put my ass in a headlock and used my teeth as a washing board. I'm still alive, and I don't suffer from ablutophobia; I take a shower daily, and when I'm stressed or sick, I take two. So I fail to see the harm in a good old mouth washing, and (side note) because my daughter has eczema, we have organic, no dyes or chemicals, goat's milk soap. In all honesty, that shit's probably healthier and more nutritional than the crap she eats. But the point is, she is going to be disciplined, because that's cause and effect. Screw up in childhood, get grounded, screw up in adulthood, go to prison. You see how teaching a kid to obey the rules is a good thing to start early, while the consequences aren't as dire?
   And if you don't like that, well, I've never been one to tell people how to raise their kids. Do what you want. But this is how I am raising mine. And while other girls are going through culture shock because they were always told they could have whatever they wanted without even trying to earn it and that everything was all rainbows and butterflies, mine is going to be out there -  acting like a real woman and getting shit done.
 

I Guess I'm One Of Those Moms (How Did That Happen?)

   I am a total, panic-attack, helicopter mom, and I really don't know where this tendency came from. My mom was not inclined to panic at all. I fell of my bike once when I was a kid, landed on my face, and everything was all swollen and bleeding and there was my mom saying, "You'll be fine." If my daughter had done the same, I would have called an ambulance, the fire department, the police, and I would have done my damned best to press charges against the effing bike; I'd do all this knowing, knowing, that I was being a complete moron, but that knowledge still wouldn't have kept me from going over the bend. And my mom would be right there next to me, rolling her eyes at me for all she was worth and telling my daughter, "You're gonna be fine." So with my mom as an example, I don't know why I seem to be wired to be this type of mom. You learn from example, right? Apparently, wrong.
   Growing up, I never wanted kids. I had Barbies, sure, but I spent my Barbie time doing things like drowning them in the tub, flushing them in the toilet, burying them in the backyard, and painting their faces with war paint because they were gonna go slaughter the cabbage patch kids, who I painted green, because I wanted them to be aliens and had to improvise. I didn't tenderly rock baby dolls to sleep because they freaked me the hell out (still do), and I didn't want them in my bed. In fact, the very fact that dolls were in the room with me often led me to go get in the bed with my sister (sorry sis). I've just never trusted those dead-eyed little creeps.
   I was the girl who put spiders, frogs, and lizards in my pockets,causing my mom to fear laundry in a way that I never will (even though I do despise that chore). I was the girl out catching grasshoppers, and that tea set -- well the teapot made a perfect grasshopper cage. When my dad was wondering how in the hell all the grasshoppers were getting into the house, well, he never checked the teapot.
    I got older, and nothing changed. I never wanted kids. My friends started getting pregnant young, the youngest at age fourteen. I was never gonna have kids, nothing that any of my friends went through made having kids seem like a good idea. To be sure, kids with kids of their own is never a good example of what pregnancy and babies should be like (although all the ones that I am still in touch with are great moms, even if they did start young), but those where the examples I had. The area that I lived in after we moved to Mississippi was predominantly poor, and in neighborhoods like that, you tend to see a lot of teenage pregnancy, along with a bunch of other things, but the pregnancy scared me the most. I didn't want babies. They were freaky, poopy, loud, they were always wet at one end or the other, and they smelled funny. That did not appeal to me at all.
   So when I got pregnant (I was nineteen, and one of the oldest of my group to not have a baby) all my friends rubbed my dislike of babies in my face. Now what was I gonna do? Not gonna be able to run from a poopy diaper when the baby the diaper belongs to belongs to me. I'd refused to even hold many of their babies, so my pregnancy was sweet revenge (since it all worked out for the best, I forgive all you grudge-holding little asshats.)
   Well, the rest is history. I avoided the whole teen mom thing, because I had a birthday in the middle of my pregnancy, which means I was twenty when I gave birth. You may not be prepared to have a baby, but if you find yourself in the position of having one, if you are any kind of a decent person, you step up to the plate and take responsibility (whether that means keeping the baby and learning to be a good parent, or adopting the baby out because you know you won't do that, or whatever), which I am proud to say I did. But given the fact that I never liked children, you would think that I would not be so helicopter-y. Except I do like my child, and I hover around her like she has a gravitational pull specifically tuned to me. Since that is not really that healthy, I force myself to back the hell off of her, because I am trying to raise an independent, capable child who can function in society, not a spoiled, mommy-does-everything-for-me, entitled brat. I think that I am doing well in that regard... but I still don't know where I got these helicopter tendencies. You would have never guessed, in my early years, that I would be one of those moms. But I am a helicopter mom, and I can get really brag-y about my kiddo, and I can overload my facebook with statuses about my kid and a zillion pictures, but there you have it. I guess we never know what kind of parent we will really be until we give it a whirl.

(Disclaimer!!! --- But please, don't actually be so callous, I'm just being a little flip here. Parenting is hard work, and takes a lot of commitment; parenting is not actually something you should do to just 'give it a whirl'.)

Finding A Waterfall

   I've written a bunch of rants lately, and so I wanted to share something else with you all. I mean, we all have a lot to rant about, I'm sure, but life is more than the things that get us fired up and pissed off. So I want to share a story about a customer who had taken the time to remember that life is about being spontaneous and adventurous and making memories with family.
   I had this woman come through my line, and to my knowledge, I had never seen her before, but she was just bouncing with excitement with the most ginormous grin on her face. This was sometime last week, I think, on a Saturday, and it was one of those hot days that we recently had. Her order was a bunch of picnic-type foods, and she says, "I bet you can guess what we are doing today?"
  "Going on a picnic?" I asked, playing along because while I am not really the most talkative person, her happiness was infectious.
   Her grin got even bigger and she told me, "I don't usually get Saturdays off, so this is the first Saturday I've had off in years, I think. I asked for it special, and my boss was like, really?!, but I wanted it, and I decided I was going to take advantage of having a Saturday off. So when I woke up this morning, I asked my kids, East or West."
   "Why East or West," I asked.
    She laughed, "That's what my kids asked too! But today, I am going to find me a waterfall. And I am going to sit by it and have lunch."
   I have no idea whether or not she found her waterfall, but there are plenty in Washington, so I am sure that she found one. I don't usually remember very many customers (I literally check out hundreds of people a day), unless they are mean (meanness is just more memorable, sadly) or they have come through my line so many times that they are starting to feel like friends rather than just people I see at the check-out, but  I remembered this woman, because she was so happy and so excited, and I remember thinking that what she was doing that Saturday was going to end up being a really neat family memory for her kids: the day mom decided to go chase waterfalls. She was one of the good ones that stuck with me, even after the day was over. I hope that she found her waterfall.

Snoqualmie Falls, one of Washington's waterfalls, within driving distance

Dignity? What's Dignified About Your Behavior?

   There is a lot of hardship in this country right now. People are struggling, and I don't deny that. But some of these people who are struggling, they could be doing just a little bit better if they would just put their pride away and find some work, any work. You know, minimum wage might not pay the bills, but you know what also doesn't pay the bills? No wage at all.
   I lived, once upon a time when I was young and stupid, with someone who refused to work at places like grocery stores or fast food chains because they were 'beneath' him. He stayed at home, not even drawing unemployment because the reason he had been fired left him ineligible for that type of compensation, and watched his family suffer while he refused to even apply at certain places because they would have been a 'step down.' I have very little tolerance left for this type of attitude, so when people come at me with their complaints about how they can't take a job like mine, because those types of jobs are beneath their dignity, they tend to get Marie's ultra-special-glare-of-death.
    I actually had a woman tell me that she was going to go apply for foodstamps because she couldn't find a job in her old field, and she just wasn't going to waste her time applying for jobs that were 'beneath her dignity', which, yes, was the exact phrasing that she used and the inspiration for this whole post. Because when we are talking about something being against people's dignities, I would think living off of foodstamps when you are physically and mentally able to work would be 'beneath your dignity'. I would think that a person looking for work would only be working 'beneath their dignity' if they took work that involved some sort of illegal activity or immoral behavior. That would be beneath your dignity. But ringing up groceries, flipping burgers, waiting tables, these are not beneath anyone. These are not shameful jobs.
   Maybe these jobs are not illustrious, prestigious positions, but hey, no one ever said that you had to make these positions your final destinations. The little gas station job you found could just be a place-holder job until you find something better. You know, there is no law that states that you cannot continue to look for a better position just because you've taken one position already. And while you look for that position, you have a job that keeps a largish unemployment gap off your work history - gaps that can make landing any position difficult because employers tend to not want to hire people who appear to have large periods of time where they are not working. Honestly, sometimes that is kinda unfair, because there are a lot of parents who choose to stay home with the kiddos for a while before getting back into the work force, and their unemployment gap is not due to laziness or lack of motivation, but instead is due to responsibility. But other times, these lengthy unemployment gaps are due to junior not wanting to take a job flipping burgers after graduation.
    You know, we all have our personal dreams and ambitions, and I am in no way saying to give them up. In no way am I saying that; I think you need to chase those dreams and ambitions with everything you have. But if everything you have involves sitting on your couch eating Cheetos while you bitch about the lack of 'suitable jobs', well, I'm sorry, but I don't think you have much. I don't think you are going to reach your goals and achieve your dreams in this manner. And at the end of the day, I have one hundred percent more respect for the person who waits my table than I do for the person who refuses to work at all. I mean, isn't that a given? One is being a productive member of society and the other is... whining. I would think that would be 'beneath someone's dignity'. But then, what do I know of this type of hardship? I'm only a single mom with two college degrees, who rings up groceries. Wait... maybe I do know what I'm talking about here. Get up off your ass and go find a job. 

You've Been Slimed (The Pink-Eye Blog)

   My daughter never caught pink-eye. I think that this is due to the fact that she was kept home in her toddler years, instead of being exposed to a class of other kids, all of whom do not understand personal boundaries. Nor did my daughter at that age, and once she actually pulled her Nanny's (what she called her great-grandmother) false teeth right out of her Nanny's mouth and stuck them into her own mouth. Ew. But she wasn't around other little babies and toddlers to do that same type of  nasty junk with, which I believe is part of the reason that I didn't have to deal with so many of these contagious-as-hell, spreads-like-wildfire diseases. By the time my daughter started going to daycare, she was also going to school because she was at that age, and school-agers tend to be in the phase when they have learned at least a little about personal boundaries (at least mine had). I mean, we had the big lice horror, but for the most part, we missed a lot of the other infectious diseases, such as pink-eye.
   Which I am eternally grateful, because just because my daughter missed the whole pink-eye mess doesn't mean that I ended up with no experience with the illness. While my sister and I were living together, her kids were going into daycare, and they were in that fun I'm-gonna-touch-all-of-your-germs toddler stage. My niece caught pink-eye a lot. Pink-eye is one of the most gross diseases that I have come in contact with. For me, there is nothing nastier that eye-boogers. My child was not one of those kids that ran around with a nasty face - I cleaned that shit up. Eye buggers make me gag. So friggin' gross.
    But sometimes you can't really help that your kid catches these things. There is not a whole lot you can do. My sister was constantly after her kids, "Wash your hands! Don't touch other kids' faces! Keep your hands to yourselves!" But contact happens, and is even understandable in some cases, such as a bunch of overly friendly toddlers playing together.
   When is contact not acceptable? When you've gone and slimed an entire grocery store with your eye-boogers. That is not acceptable; that is foul. This rant is brought to you today by the woman who was picking at her kid's pink-eye right in the grocery check-out line. This rant is brought to you by the woman who was putting her hands all up in her kid's disease and then putting those same, eye-booger covered, infected hands aaaaaalllllll over the debit card reader's pin pad. This rant is brought to you by the woman who then, because she split her payment, handed me germ infested cash. That is not okay. I know that you need to take care of your kiddo, but please, do so in a way that does not actively aid the spread of the disease. Don't sit there and pick at their infection right in public, ignoring the fact that everyone around you is turning interesting shades of green.
    So of course, there was a hold up on register 8 this morning, because I had to disinfect EVERYTHING. I had no choice; we'd been slimed, and pink-eye spreads like wildfire.