The Post I Might Regret Posting

Something happened last week. I don't know how and I don't know why but this something has rattled me to the core.

The details are still hazy but through a random series of events, the cops (my kids) somehow put 3 Year Old Neighbor Kid in prison (the window well), removed the ladder, and proceeded to interrogate the prisoner (3 Year Old Neighbor Kid) who apparently hadn't exactly understood the rules of the game (cops & bad guys), or lack thereof to begin with (and this is the watered down version of the story). I could have handled it but then I found out that this scene had played out more than once. I could have even handled THAT but then I found out that the little sh*$s had been speaking less than respectfully to several individuals (and seeing that I am the poster child of respectful speech, it boggles the mind.....). One of them being Mom To 3 Year Old Neighbor Kid. And to add insult to injury I also discovered that they had been buying ice cream on like an HOURLY basis from Creepy Astro Van Driving Ice Cream Man (who lures children by playing halloween music - in June) and their piggy banks were literally empty. And just so we're clear here, they WERE full. And believe it or not, the list of travesties went on.

You know that part in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 where that octopus monster thing emerges from the ocean and he's so mad at the pirates for shooting canons at his eyeballs that he grabs the ship with all 8 legs and then threatens to eat the ship whole by opening up all his many large teeth filled mouths, while drooling octopus saliva all over the ship just to make his point? Or something of that nature? Ya. It was kind of like that.

Actually that part came later. But you wanna know what my initial reaction was? I cried. Hysterically cried. Like with the huffs and the baaaaaah's. And I don't do that very easily (everyone that goes to church with me is like, "um, liars never prosper") when it comes to anger, frustration, or disappointment. It took me about 24 hours to digest what I had uncovered (in a matter of minutes). But when I did, I quickly got to realizing that we are entering a new phase of parenting. A new era. One that demands we lengthen the leash and come to the realization that bad decisions are inevitable. This is the kind of parenting stuff that nobody tells you about. Not because they don't want to tell you, but because you wouldn't believe them if they did. Nobody wants to believe that their kid isn't the smartest, sweetest, kindest, cuddliest, most adorable creature that has ever lived. Virtually incapable of anything more than the occasional tantrum. Our naivety. It's the only thing that lies between logic and procreation I tell you. Well, that and the .05% failure rate of the pill.

I think most of us know on a rational level that our kids will make mistakes. What we don't know however, is how painful and mortifying it is when they actually make those mistakes. The real ones. The ones that aren't justified by simply saying "he doesn't know any better". Because deep down inside you know they know better. And they know you know they know better. You know?

For the better part of a week I've been analyzing the situation and trying to adjust my parenting techniques accordingly (turns out letting my kids stay up till 11:30 has it's down side - who knew). It goes without saying that I needed to reel them in a bit. And smack their bums a bit. But there's something I keep coming back to. It's the concept that if we couldn't make mistakes, we would never know the pain of making them and the lessons that can be learned from the pain we feel when we do. I don't want to shelter them from that. I don't want them to become teenagers who don't know from experience a good decision from a bad one. Because I have to believe that they really would be worse off. Oh, don't worry. I plan to screw them up nice and good. And honestly I don't expect that any day soon they'll casually comment on how selfless it was of me to oh I don't know, MAKE them? Or lend them my womb for 9 months? But if in the end they can somehow emerge with a small sense of what it means to be responsible and possibly even develop a few decision making skills, I'll be far less likely to hunt down that ice cream man and throw him in the custom designed prison out back. Word on the street is that it kinda sucks.