Cram Parenting

It has been a super-challenging ten days from a parenting perspective. In June 2008 I officially got 100% custody of my two kids--14-year-old Zack and 12-year-old Charlotte. Unfortunately, June 2008 was also the month that I unexpectedly had major surgery and a month after I had found out that I had a cancer recurrence.

Since then I have been on overdrive, trying to figure out how to cram in all of life's learning that a mother should impart to her kids. I feel kind of sorry for them. There is almost no day that goes by without me jumping up on my soap-box trying to instill and solidify fine human being traits. They are such great kids and I want them to be safe and secure no matter what the future holds. This sometimes looks like me being a super "over-protective parent" which I am to understand is an insult but which I consider to be my job. My job is not to be "fair" or "nice" or "their friend." My job is to keep them safe and if that means that I have to say "No" to certain desired activities then that is what I will do. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest though I notice time and time again that after tempers cool, the kids acknowledge their appreciation that I have their back and that "on the big things" I am pretty cool and even in the case of my eldest who didn't speak to me for several days recently, he made a joke about what I had not allowed the week prior and I got to see that seeing through a boundary means that they know that my word means something and that I will do my best to keep them out of risky situations.

Sometimes trying to support them is my saying "Yes" to things that I would never have imagined. I'll digress for a moment. On Monday after my acupuncture appointment I took myself to Granville Island for lunch. I got some Indian veg on a stainless steel thali plate and went and sat down on the other side sharing a table with a woman around my age who was waiting for a friend.

The woman and I started to chat...she was saying how much she liked the Indian food and that she always brings a tiffin from work and that they have about 40 of them for all the staff to use and I asked her what kind of business and she said "we develop video games." By now her friend has arrived and I say "Oh, too bad my son isn't here...I know nothing about video games but he loves them." Then I asked what titles they had done and she said "Oh, ones that your 14 year old shouldn't be playing...they are militaristic." "Oh I said, my son just got one of those (actually now two as of yesterday)." The woman's friend said "Oh, I wouldn't let my kids play those" and I remarked that "well, many of his friends have those kinds of games and so he would be playing them anyways and I want my kids to want to have their friends over. I can't stand those games and won't even go in the same room with them when they are on but I have an agreement that is that (a) anything that is in our house in mine and anything may be confiscated if I decide that it should be and (b) that I will take games away if I don't see a huge distinction between the mood and attitude of those games and his behaviour at home and away from home. We have an understanding you could say.

I also had a mini brainwave last night in the "If you can't beat them, join them" realm and asked Zack if there might be a game that I would like and that he would be willing to play with me. Charlotte was intrigued as well and we went to Blockbuster video today to see what there might be. Charlotte and I went staight to the good deal bin and Zack came and found us a couple of minutes later, excitedly indicating that he found the one...Rock Band...with drum kit, guitar and mike. "I call drum kit," I say. "I call guitar," adds Zack. "I want to be the singer," say Charlotte. And "The Defacers" was born. I was trying for "The Kick-Ass Trio" but Zack said "Nothing with Trio in it."