Hallie could have found Osama bin Laden. If she thought he had money, or would drive her to the movies, or God forbid had her cell phone, she would have found him. She would have walked the desert, searched bunkers and not only would she have found him, he would have surrendered. Why would he give himself up? Because no one could listen to Hallie talk and talk and talk and talk without wanting to rip their face off. She is relentless. Sam is no slouch either. My girls could negotiate their way out of Houdini's Chinese Water Torture Cell. The conversations go something like this:
Sam: "I am going over to Kelly's house for a sleepover"
Me: "Sam, you know I don't really like you sleeping at Kelly's house"
Sam: "Why"
Me: "I don't think there is a lot of supervision and I haven't heard such great things about her"
Now here is my first problem- I am engaging a 12 year old by actually giving her answers. Why is she entitled to answers from me? Why can't I just say No and have it mean no! However, I have "taught" my girls that they can always get their way by wearing me down.
Sam: "Mom-A. Who tells you these things? Your friends don't know anything about her, you don't know anything about her"
Me: "Sam, I said no"
Sam: "You are sooo mean-a. Please-a- why don't you trust me"
She always goes for the jugular with the trust thing. I start to think hmmmmmm, why don't I let her go- I trust her right? Truth is, I shouldn't trust her. I have learned that lesson. But I still get a guilty feeling when she goes down that path. She knows this, senses my weakness, and like a cat toying with a mouse, starts to smell victory, so she keeps at me:
Sam: "So and so's mom let's her go there and you trust her, don't you."
She now tries to piggyback on someone elses's mom's failure to stick to her guns.
Most of the time these arguments take place via text. My girls are so good at the sneak attack, that it took me a while to figure out that I was being had! They learned quickly, that if they asked me, face to face, to go to an "allowed" friends house, that they could then text me the "unallowed" request and that most times I would just say OK. SMART aren't they. Michael and I say that Hallie is smart like the criminally insane. We compare her to Hanibal Lechter.
Another one of my parenting pitfalls comes in the form of punishment, or lack thereof. I am soooo good at threatening punishments, but rarely follow through. This too my girls know. They know if I threaten to take away their phones, computers, TV's, social life, or even oxygen, that I may follow through briefly, but in the end I will crumble like a deck of cards. The other day, Samantha was mad at Hallie because Hallie was wearing her shirt. Now, in Hallie's defense, I accidently put Samantha's shirt is Hallie's room after finally folding the laundry that sat on my dining room table for days. However, like the criminally insane, Hallie took advantage of my error, and knowing damn well that the shirt was Samantha's, wore it anyway, under the innocent guise of "I found it in my room, so therefore it must be mine". This approach may very well have worked on me (because Sam and Hallie are the same size, I can never tell their clothes apart and I often put the wrong clothes in the wrong room) but don't think for a minute that Samantha did not throw a fit, complete with tears, upon realizing that Hallie was wearing her shirt! "MOM-A!!! HALLIE IS WEARING MY SHIRT-A!! THAT'S MY SHIRT-A HALLIE! GET IT OFF-A! MOM-A WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS? HMMMMMMMMM? Now you have to imagine that Sam is screaming this at the top of her lungs, and Hallie is taunting her by screaming back "I FOUND IT IN MY ROOM" (example of Hannibal Lechter- she knew exactly what she was in for when she put that shirt on). Once Sam realizes that I am not going to force Hallie out of the shirt (mostly because I am trying to avoid more laundry), she starts to threaten Hallie with physical violence. At this point you would think I would intervene. Truth be told, I am secretly hoping Sam gets a few good punches in. Now Sam is chasing Hallie, who is running away and screaming. OK, I guess I need to step in and parent now. "Sam" I say, "Don't hit your sister or you will be in trouble." Sam now starts mulling this over. "What will my punishment be?" I realize that she is weighing what ridiculous punishment I will threaten her with, and that I won't stick to, so I better come up with something good. "You will have to stand outside in the rain for an hour." Wouldn't you know it- she made a fist and punched Hallie right in the arm, then marched outside to stand on the front steps, in the rain for an hour. OK- not the best parenting decision I've ever made.
Don't get me wrong- there are times that I say things and do follow through. A few years ago Hallie was giving me a really hard time getting up in the morning, so I threatened that if she missed the bus again (this was back when I was making my kids take the bus) I was going to make her walk to school. Of course she didn't really think I would make her walk to school, so the next day she refused to get out of bed. And guess what- I made her walk to school! I drove behind her, sipping my coffee listening to the radio and shooing away all my friends who stopped to offer her a ride. This went on for three days. By the last day, people were stopping me and giving me high fives for sticking to my guns. It was glorious, but short lived. I quickly resumed my bad habit of driving them to school.
I have a bad habit of saying ridiculous things when I am mad at my kids, then finding myself in the unfortunate position of having to follow through on my threat. For example: one tuesday afternoon, Hallie decided she did not want to go to Hebrew School. No reason for her defiance, she just didn't want to go. So the carpool shows up in my driveway, and I have a 10 year old who refuses to move. Now first of all, can you even believe that this kid pulled this crap, because I know that I couldn't believe it myself. She just refused to go and nothing short of carrying her out to the car is going to change her mind. So what do I do? I carry her out to the car, kicking and fighting me the whole time, and hoping that she will stop because doesn't want to embarrass herself in front of the other kids in the car. No such luck- she could care less about what the other kids think of her. I finally say "if you don't get in that car right now, I am going to take everything you own out of your room, and you are going to have nothing but a mattress and some pillows." She still refused to get in the car. Now I am talking through clenched teeth and doing the arm squeeze/nail dig. Again, she refused to go, so I let the carpool go and head back to the house while Hallie stands in the driveway. True to my word, I proceed to Hallie's room with 8 large black garbage bags and fill them to the top with all Hallie's beloved possessions. I take pictures, perfume, earrings, lip gloss, TV, DVD's, DVD player, ipod, books, magazines, sheets, comforter, and anything else that wasn't furniture or permanently attached to the walls. I draged all 8 bags of loot into my room and waited...and waited...and waited for Hallie to come upstairs. After about an hour, she decided to grace me with her presence and headed up to her room. I heard an audible gasp coming from down the hall. I giggled with glee! Then I heard nothing. Complete and total silence. I assumed she fainted because she was never speechless. Eventually she came into my room, spied all her goodies shoved into black garbage bags and asked how she could earn her stuff back. After a few days of slowly giving her back some things, I returned everything because I couldn't stand her clutter in my bedroom.
These are the kinds of things that no one tells you about when you think about having children. You know that you will have sleepless nights, have to deal with spit up and change poopy diapers, but never did you think that a 10 year old would just say no, dig in her heels and refuse to go somewhere.
I guess it should be no surprise that my kids don't listen to me. What incentive do they have to follow my rules. Why bother picking dirty clothes off the floor if mom is going to do it. Why bother making my bed if mom is going to do it. And most importantly, why bother listening when mom won't follow through on her punishments. Why is it that I pick up dirty clothes, make beds and don't enforce my punishments? Because it is easier to give in than to argue. Unfortunately, this isn't the way to raise responsible kids. Now I have to figure out how to undo all the damage, and start over again, this time with me in charge. They are not going to like this. Tough Shit!!
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