I kind of wish I had not entered this thread. It probably was not a good time for me to do so. I’m in a bit of a shaky point in my life this week, dealing with a death, which makes it more difficult for me to be objective about how my posts are being taken or if other posts are about mine or are general responses to the topic, or responses to someone else. It’s hard in a forum, too, to know if someone’s tone is meant to be sincere, helpful, matter-of-fact or snarky. Right now, it’s even It’s hard for me to figure out if I’m just being part of the debate in an OK way or if I’m being irrationally defensive.
So, not being at all sure about any of this right now, (and with all apologies if I’ve missed the mark) I will say this: I grew up in the deep South (though lived most of my adult life out of it.). Accordingly, I grew up in an environment where Ma’am and Sir, and Please, and Thank You were not negotiable. And despite the shortcomings of that time and place, my parents also instilled a genuine, sincere regard for all types and races and economic classes of people and I don’t really know how they grew to be this way, in the Mississippi and South Alabama rural poor upbringings that they had. Having said all this, these values are a part of me. I may have relaxed the Sir and Ma’am etiquette with my daughter, but make no mistake, I brought her up to know manners, to know kindness, to know not to be disruptive. Were she ever to be disruptive I would whisk her out of any restaurant, any movie or concert faster than you can say “Jack Rabbit.”
I feel my words in this post have been taken further than I meant. Maybe my wording was wrong. But I meant to convey a general style of relating with my easy-tempered, very verbal child that worked for us. I acknowledged it wouldn’t work for all temperaments, all the time. Of course, each and every time we went to the library I didn’t explain why we had to be quiet ad nauseam. Of course, I didn’t do all the explaining in a pedantic way. Of course, there were hurried times when a directive was made, or when no explanation was necessary. And while I didn’t force coats and multiple layers of clothes on each time we went out in winter as I saw so many parents do, she hardly wore shorts in the snow, either, unless it was a two-minute foray to stick her bare foot into it off the front steps to see how it felt. What I was describing, though, was a style of parenting that did seem different from what I tended to see around me in my particular community: lots of cliche’d directives repeated over and over by frustrated parents that didn’t seem to be connecting with the child, but then little follow-though or ineffective follow-through. Maybe the fact that I was twenty years older than the average mom had something to do with it.
Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in but I feel some may have taken my words and made a bit of a caricature of them. Maybe you don’t mean _ me_ at all but the article; or another poster; or what you see in your community of over-the-top, permissive parenting. But you don’t really know me or my daughter. She’s not perfect by any means but if there is anything she is, she’s a polite and civilized, and well-modulated fourteen, in general company at least ( shows her teen moods mostly in the privacy of home.) There are many ways to Rome, many good ways to parent and to become a well-adjusted individual. I just entered the discussion to share the way that flowed naturally from my personality, that worked well for us. Perhaps, my written words about it are coming out too saccharine and “precious,” that I am selectively remembering the sweetness and successes because my own mother died last week and I need happy thoughts. I know none of you knew that, so no need to cater to me. But please understand my words in that context now, and please don’t judge and laugh about (if, in fact, you ever did) how you think I reared my daughter.
