I have a son turning 14 in less than a month. My son walks to and from middle school with his 11 year old brother and the 13 year old girl from up the street. Last night my 11 year old informed me that my 14 year old and the girl up the street had made the decision to lose their virginity together today after school in an abandoned building. I was horrified to hear this and attempted to have a calm yet real conversation with the son with the big plans. I have always been a pretty open minded parent and have had the view point that when my kids are ready to take that huge step there would not be a whole lot that I can do about it other than educate them and try to dissuade them from things that they are not ready for.
Since I work my teenagers are home alone for no more than 2 hours each day after school. I have educated my son about the dangers of sex both emotionally and psychically and have asked him to come to me when he thinks he is ready so that we may discuss it again in real time. So when I confronted my son, calmly let me add, I was very upset that he lied to me. I reminded him of our agreement that as long as he remains open and honest with me I would remain as understanding as one could possibly be. Let me add that I am horrified that he would think that he is ready for this. After attempting to discuss the situation with my son and having him continually lie to me about it. I sent him to his room. That was more for me to figure out exactly how to handle the situation. You see, I consider myself a creative parent that comes up with innovative ways to teach my children lessons. But this one had me completely perplexed...I thought this problem was years away.
As I thought of punishments and possible solutions that including quitting my job so that I may transport him to and from school daily I realized this was not a realistic solution. Then it occurred to me exactly what to do. I contacted the girls parents and let them in our our kids little pact they had. The girl completely fessed up and admitted everything. After they dealt with their daughter I suggested that the father of the girl, a huge intimidating man come have a chat with my son about his plans with his daughter. And that is exactly what we did. I did not even inform my son I was in on it. I just told him that the father of the girl he wanted to sleep with was here to talk to him. I led the father into my sons room shut the door and left. My son looked horrified! After about 30 minutes the man reemerged thanked me and left. I went in to check on my son and he looked to be in shock. Mission Accomplished!
My son and I had yet another conversation in which I asked him to imagine that father coming over to discuss his daughter being pregnant and having to deal with that. Anyways, they will be transporting their daughter to and from school for awhile and my son is punished for lying to me. He is currently writing a 2 page essay on what it would be like to be a father at 14. And this bullet has been dodged for now.
Update- Well that girl became extremely obsessed with my son, as a matter of fact her obsession will get a post of its own. They moved and no sex took place as far as I know. I think my tactic was supermomish because the key to raising teenagers is being able to shock them when they need it the most! But this made me think about the age I lost my virginity (15 and 1/2) probably seems early to most but I was the last one in my group of friends most gave it up at 13 or 14. What age were you when you first got it on?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
SERIOUSLY WTF- REPOST from 1/14/10
Super busy lately but wanted to give you a lil something. Please enjoy this repost from last year.
So I work in childcare...not your typical childcare, not a daycare, more like drop off care on an as needed basis. We service mostly high end customers and the majority of them are so hard to please to begin with. I have to share an incident that happened to me yesterday. I had about 10 kids varying in ages from 12mths to 7 years old. It was a normal chaotic day with the normal amount of chaos and I've been doing this for 9 years so yesterday was no big deal.
One of the little girls we had did not listen, would take things from others, hit littler ones etc. This particular girl was two so all this behavior was pretty much to be expected. When her mother returned to pick her up she asked me how her daughter's behavior was and I first responded "it was okay".
She prodded me for more details not fully accepting the "it was okay" answer.
So she asked again "no, really was she okay?"
Not wanting to lie to her I said "Well, she was a little mean, but it was no big deal".
The mother looked at me as if I had just called her daughter a retarded lunatic and said "MEAN?". "What exactly did she do that constitutes her being called mean?"
At first I thought she was just curious maybe even sharing a bit of sarcastic humor. With one look in her eyes I could tell she was not happy, in fact she looked horrified. I explained to her that her daughter had taken toys from other kids and even at times hit smaller kids but it was not a big deal. It was typical to see this behavior at this age.
She hollered at me "If it was no big deal then why did you just call her MEAN!"
I stood there shocked wondering how to respond to her.
Before I could even respond she said " Well, since she is sooo mean maybe we will never come back..there are other places that we could give our business to...I can't believe you just called her MEAN! What an ugly word to use to describe someones child!" Then she went into a tyrade about "if she was so MEAN you could have called me, or put her in timeout, but to refer to her as MEAN is insulting!"
I in shock at her reaction struggled to find the right thing to say to diffuse the situation. I said to her " I'm sorry,it was not that big of deal which is why we did not call or utilize timeout and I would not have even said anything had you not asked."
"Well again calling my daughter MEAN is so inapproaite you could have said she had issues or her behavior was less than savory.
SERIOUSLY!!! WTF!! If I had said to her that her daugther "had issues" then I can imagine that she would have seriously hit the roof! She just kept going on and on about me calling her daughter mean and insisting she would never come back again. In the course of her tantrum I apologized again.
At this point my manager came up and she said to my manager "well your employee here thinks my daughter is MEAN!" The manager, who thought she was joking too just smiled at the lady. So I turned to the manager and said "she says she is not coming back". My point in saying that was to inform the manager that the lady was really upset so that maybe she could diffuse the pyscho mom. But she didn't catch on quick enough to do so.
The mother then said "well give me my MEAN daughter, her MEAN diaper bag and her MEAN boots!" She was seroiuously furoius. I at this point just walked off realizing I was not gonna be able to fix this.
Anyways she wrote a letter to the owner and went on and on about how rude I was...she's getting $36 dollars credit even though yesterday she only spent $15. And I am defeated yet again! So I ask you, especially moms... did I do something wrong?
Update- I was promoted to manager at that job 1 month later. But not long after I left that company to work where I am now.
So I work in childcare...not your typical childcare, not a daycare, more like drop off care on an as needed basis. We service mostly high end customers and the majority of them are so hard to please to begin with. I have to share an incident that happened to me yesterday. I had about 10 kids varying in ages from 12mths to 7 years old. It was a normal chaotic day with the normal amount of chaos and I've been doing this for 9 years so yesterday was no big deal.
One of the little girls we had did not listen, would take things from others, hit littler ones etc. This particular girl was two so all this behavior was pretty much to be expected. When her mother returned to pick her up she asked me how her daughter's behavior was and I first responded "it was okay".
She prodded me for more details not fully accepting the "it was okay" answer.
So she asked again "no, really was she okay?"
Not wanting to lie to her I said "Well, she was a little mean, but it was no big deal".
The mother looked at me as if I had just called her daughter a retarded lunatic and said "MEAN?". "What exactly did she do that constitutes her being called mean?"
At first I thought she was just curious maybe even sharing a bit of sarcastic humor. With one look in her eyes I could tell she was not happy, in fact she looked horrified. I explained to her that her daughter had taken toys from other kids and even at times hit smaller kids but it was not a big deal. It was typical to see this behavior at this age.
She hollered at me "If it was no big deal then why did you just call her MEAN!"
I stood there shocked wondering how to respond to her.
Before I could even respond she said " Well, since she is sooo mean maybe we will never come back..there are other places that we could give our business to...I can't believe you just called her MEAN! What an ugly word to use to describe someones child!" Then she went into a tyrade about "if she was so MEAN you could have called me, or put her in timeout, but to refer to her as MEAN is insulting!"
I in shock at her reaction struggled to find the right thing to say to diffuse the situation. I said to her " I'm sorry,it was not that big of deal which is why we did not call or utilize timeout and I would not have even said anything had you not asked."
"Well again calling my daughter MEAN is so inapproaite you could have said she had issues or her behavior was less than savory.
SERIOUSLY!!! WTF!! If I had said to her that her daugther "had issues" then I can imagine that she would have seriously hit the roof! She just kept going on and on about me calling her daughter mean and insisting she would never come back again. In the course of her tantrum I apologized again.
At this point my manager came up and she said to my manager "well your employee here thinks my daughter is MEAN!" The manager, who thought she was joking too just smiled at the lady. So I turned to the manager and said "she says she is not coming back". My point in saying that was to inform the manager that the lady was really upset so that maybe she could diffuse the pyscho mom. But she didn't catch on quick enough to do so.
The mother then said "well give me my MEAN daughter, her MEAN diaper bag and her MEAN boots!" She was seroiuously furoius. I at this point just walked off realizing I was not gonna be able to fix this.
Anyways she wrote a letter to the owner and went on and on about how rude I was...she's getting $36 dollars credit even though yesterday she only spent $15. And I am defeated yet again! So I ask you, especially moms... did I do something wrong?
Update- I was promoted to manager at that job 1 month later. But not long after I left that company to work where I am now.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Grinch who stole christmas....LITERALLY!
As I have stated before, I have 6 kids: two from his previous marriage, two from mine and two together. The two from his live w/ the mom but visit often and were with us for the holidays. His two are a boy-13 and a girl-12. During the visit I noticed random things missing, razors, lotion, etc. But with 6 kids in the house no biggie right? Until some money came up missing...That's when dad decided to check through his daughters luggage just to be sure nothing inadvertently got packed. Me....I did not think for a single moment that anyone had taken items. As dad began to unpack the luggage it was discovered that my step daughter had stolen about 20 items from our home. Items ranging from shoes, to cosmetics, to clothes, to lighters, flashlights, money etc. I was deeply hurt and horrified! When confronted my daughter just said nothing but did not appear remorseful at all. My fiance got all big and bad and said he was gonna definitely discipline her but then decided that having her apologize was punishment enough! My hurt over the theft was quickly replaced by anger at my fiance for not giving her some sort of consequence. Not only was she let completely off the hook but all the other kids in the home who were also stolen from were outraged! I'm not exactly sure what should have been done although I do know that since she had sooo much it could not have possibly been her first time. Now, it is not uncommon for dad and I disagree on how to handle the kids when there is an issue. I am more strict where he just takes a kinder, gentler, more INEFFECTIVE approach. But this was just ridiculous. Not only did we all feel violated having our property stolen but then not even having any sort of justice served was just, to me, encouraging that sort of behavior. It has been very difficult to explain to my biological kids why she was let off so easily and bringing it up with him just seems useless because he gets soo offensive. Since that incident I just completely lost respect for him as a father. And feel betrayed by him as well as her. Suggestions anyone?
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