By Diana's blog | August 13, 2010 at 09:39 PM EDT | No Comments
The hardest part about being a parent sometimes is resisting the urge to choke your children and scream "you idiot, if you would just behave a little bit then I would be able to give you so much more instead of spending my time punishing you". Sounds like an episode of Sex and the City but it is really an episode of Teenager in the Suburbs.
In this case, my darling teenage daughter, could not stop fighting with her younger brother. I tried to remind her that if she could just be civil, even just not speak to him at all, then we could have our special evening together after the others went to sleep. It involved covert chocolate and trashy TV. What more could anyone ask for? I practically pleaded with her to weigh the importance of making her brother cry and spending a whole night of privilege with me. But she couldn't help herself. It was too tempting. With one shout of the F word she put a screeching halt to all our plans. I will consume all that chocolate by myself. I will erase the shows from the DVR. I will not reward her for being cruel.
We all make bad decisions in our lives. I can look back and see that my prospective on things was blurry, skewed by emotion and circumstance, and there are things I should have done differently. But luckily none of them were terrible. In the life of a teen, they can do life damaging things based on pride and mostly stupidity. We all read about it in the paper and watch the TV movies (mostly staring Melissa Gilbert or Alissa Milano I confuse the two). I can only pray that my daughters impulsivity will not get her into more trouble.
At the same time she is learning how to drive. What a bad idea to have poor decision makers behind the wheel. Believe me, I am well aware of the convenience having them running the errands and driving themselves from place to place. But I think they should be in specially marked cars. Like those pizza delivery cars with the huge triangular sign on top. They should have to put those on top of the car when they are driving it. It could diplomatically say "Teen Driver" but when you flash your high beams on it, it could read "poor judgement".
So now I am in the position of being the punisher when I wanted was to be the peacemaker. I can't relent and reward the bad behavior, as much as I was looking forward to our evening together. I also have to let the other children know that nasty behavior will not be tolerated.
Oh well, it gives me an excuse for some "me" time, which as we all know will just mean that I fall asleep by 9:30.