children
And the nosey, clingy mom award goes to
When there’s chance, there’s also choice.-SMS
I had a chance, then next, I had a choice. I’m not sure if I made the right one, but I had to get real quiet and hear my voice. I haven’t been hearing it really…well, I actually haven’t been listening. As my daughter gets older, I get to listening to who God wants her to be and I’m pretty good at hearing from Him on behalf of my children. I have to make hard choices, different choices than those made for me, so that I can carry out what He has for me to do for her. Uggh. I forgot to tell yall what happened a week or so ago.
See, I am not afraid to admit that I am in the friend choosing, well, social network choosing business and not that far from strategically arranged marriages. Ok, get the Romeo and Juliet tragedy stuff out of your mind. No, you can’t choose who your children fall in love with, but I am not afraid any more to talk about what love is/what lust is/what love can do/what love can’t do. Is anybody hearing me? Anyway, my daughter is a thoughtful, fun-loving mature 11 year old who likes to listen to pop music, reads 5-6 books a week and loves dance/musical theatre. Not too many people in our surrounding community have her same interests. So, when I find some child (who I like…let’s tell the truth) who has similar interests as she, who she in turn likes, I will do whatever I can to make their friendship/relationship fruitful. And yes that means getting into their business and talking about them behind their backs. Ok, I said it and I’m sure my DH has left the building/cut off the computer because…I’ll pick up on him after I tell you what I did. DD has a good friend. Good friend having a bad moment says something that hurts my daughter’s feelings. Nothing real crazy yall, but it hurt her nonetheless and my daughter (you know the one who is pressing me for new friends/better social networks OR pressing me to return her to school where she was teased/criticized and bored) starts to avoid the girl. I am great friends with her mom, so I tell the mom what the daughter said. Mom said Unacceptable and I will address it. Daughter comes over to my house/apologizes to my daughter sincerely and all is right with the world. Well, that ain’t all that happened. My daughter was a little huffy because she feels I should have told her that I was going to tell her friend’s mom. I reminded her that I did say I was going to do that. Daughter also felt that she should have had a chance to deal with it in her own way and not have me interfere. True dat.
“Honey, you were taking too long and I know that when stuff festers, it only gets worse. She barely remembered saying it and it was just a week ago.”
“Mommy, I just wish you would have told me because I didn’t want to get her in trouble and make her feel bad.”
“You’re right. Next time, I’ll let you know BEFORE I tell the parents.”
Yep, her eyes went up in her head for a minute, but same friend just joined our homeschool group/has been over our house a few times this week/just joined my daugher’s dance program and the two of them are back to hanging. Was it worth it? Was I right? DH says that I’m enabling my daughter to not be able to handle her own problems and that I need to get out of it. Ok! I see his points. Would I do it again? If I thought it was worth it, YEP!
Good friendships that affirm who you are are hard to come by, even for adults. I share with my daughter certain techniques…shoot, we talk about everything. I share with her how I would do things, but she is not as confrontational as I am. I had no problem with going up to someone who didn’t like me and asking them what their problem was. I spent my whole life fighting for my place at the table and I want my kids to have that fight, that competitive edge, that “oh no you won’t diss me like that.” How do you get it across? How do you take it to the streets when your kids don’t even know where the streeet is? Can you hear me?
Now, me doing this is not the only time that I’ve contacted parents regarding some unacceptable behavior. Flat out. I got a situation now with the high schoolers in our homeschool group. They’ve lost their natural minds and if I didn’t know better I would think they went to the high school next door to where we meet. They half speak. They are doggin’ out the younger kids. They even had the nerve to try to turn one of our new members against my daughter based on a beef she had with one of their friends LAST YEAR and their friend isn’t even in our group anymore. Is that not insane? Petty? Clique-ish? I’m trying to see how to nip it in the bud without making the high schoolers feel bad, but making them accountable to the standards that we’ve set. Am I tripping? Maybe my standards, my expectations are too high? I’ve rid myself of foolishness, foolish people in my close knit circle and I don’t think people know how high of a standard I set for my children and I align myself with parents who have similar (and in some cases higher) standards as I do. I don’t live in a bubble and none of my children have problems interacting with people who are different than them, but know that I had to work damn hard to build up my daughter’s self esteem and self confidence to let some lil…confused teenagers…DH says I’m tripping, says I’m acting like my grandmother (yeah, brotha had to go back two generations on this one), says it’s nosey, clingy and that I need to let it ride its course.
“If the parents (this is based on a strong push by other parents to name our group a Christian group and the push to teach Christian principles) can’t stop them from calling folks names (yes, one of the kids, who has a load of issues, called my daughter ‘a piece of trash’), then why should you all sit down in a group and force them to deal with their issues in front of our daughter…it’s probably going to make matters worse.”
I listened to the brother. I didn’t fully agree because I see things in the big picture. I feel responsible for providing our children, all of the children close to me, with an opportunity, with the tools to be great, like not OK, not like everybody else, but great. I want to plant enough seeds that something is bound to grow up inside of them right when they are getting ready to call someone out of their name or yell at someone because they don’t like them. Am I trying to create a utopia?
I thought I was trying to build a village, kinda like the one I had on Lee Place. In second grade, when I started walking home without my grandmother but with Lolita, the already developed middle schooler. Her and her brother lived on my street. I thought I was cool because all these boys liked her and they walked with us. I had to act a little fast just to try to get some attention from all of the boys that were hanging around us. They cussed a lot, so to be cool, I cussed too. And Mama Turner was sitting on the porch when we passed by her house. I know when she started to walk in the house she was going to call my grandmother. Sure enough, Grandma was waiting on the porch and because she was everybody’s grandmother, those loud mouthed kids got real quiet, real nice-like when they walked up to the house.
“Hi, Ms. Tolbert.”
“How ya doin’, Ms. Tolbert?”
I could tell by her face that I was going down and I knew she was going to take a few with me.
“Why you boys walking home this way? Yall live across Woodrow. You should have gone home the back way.” (Hard core brothers are now looking down at the ground, feeling the pressure)
“We just wanted to hang out with Lolita and her brother, Ms. Tolbert. We weren’t gettin’ into nuttin’”
“Yeah, you didn’t this time, but you’re probably about to ‘fore Ma Turner called me and told me you got my lil granbaby talkin’ like she livin’ off of 12th Street or something.”
“We didn’t mean to cause any trouble, ma’am.”
“I know yalls better than that. Stop trying to get all up on Lolita and go hit yo’ books. Don’t make me call ’round to Ms. Lee.” (Hard core brothers close to tears. Ms. Lee was their grandmother and she always carried around a paperbag and a belt. ‘nough said.)
“Alright now. We leavin’. Sorry, Ms. Tolbert. Sorry, lil girl.”
Why were they saying sorry to me? Huh? I was the one cussin’. Why were they scared? Because Ms. Tolbert didn’t take no mess. Do you know how many folks didn’t mess with me because of my grandmama!!? Clearly the kids in my homeschool group could get checked by me. I may not carry a pistol like Ms. Tolbert, but I’m hard core. I would be checking them in love. They should have the same amount of respect as those boys who walked with us that day, right?
Still not sure as to what I’m going to do. I’m the President and I have high standards. If this was anywhere else I would be afraid that the parent wouldn’t understand that I was being critical, but helpful. I don’t want anymore selfish, self-centered people loosed into the world. I don’t want another spoiled, inconsiderate hypocrite being loosed out of a loving, church going, spirit filled household. Had a chance to say something to the parents involved. Chose not to. Had a chance to develop a program, a workshop on God’s love and kindness. Chose to put that to someone else who is interested. Still trying to figure it out, but I still think that I will proudly stand with the trophy…”I’d like to thank the Academy for this prestiguous award. Being a nosey, clingy mom has been the highlight of my existence…
Discussion
2 comments for “And the nosey, clingy mom award goes to”
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While its wonderful to think that these intelligent children will learn to cope and deal with all of these issues- ultimately I don’t think there’s any problem with a parent giving a little push (or huge shove) to direct them in a particular direction. Yes she may be embarassed, may not understand, but someday I would bet that she’ll remember not you being nosey and overstepping boundaries, but having a caring committed mother who would do any and everything for the benefit of her children. Good luck with the homeschooling group, I am a Mama bear to the core and would have definitely had words for anyone who belittled another child let alone my own. I guess the reality is there’s no way to prevent the negative people of the world from existing, all we can do is to armor our children to defend themselves and stand strong in their own faith and convictions.
Wel, I think that something should be said to those teens because they obviously are not learning it anyplace else. So they need to start some place. I got in trouble recently for listening on my nephews phone conversation. this young girl likes to call him. He is 12 what is she doing calling him. Well, the deal is this I wanted to know what she has to talk about so I answered the phone when it rang which was before he answered and he knew I was on there and I just did not hang up. After awhile my mother said you should hang up I left the room she was in and continued to listen. The girl at this point has done nothing but talk to other people in her house and finally she says well, did you hear my question before I hung up last time and he said yes. She said what is your answer he says I don’t know. She says well you should have an answer quick right. And of course I am losing my mind question about WHAT!?! So listen and there is no response from him. I hung up the phone went where he was and asked what is the question. He said is some other girl(I can’t remember her name) what classes do they have together. I asked him why does she care. He said I don’t know. I told him to hang up she is a knuckle head so he told her he had to go. Of course when I told DH he went off. And the conversation escalated again at a gathering we had recently and he came in on the conversation before I could stop it– And he went totally off and talked about how I better not do that to our kids and respecting their privacy and all this stuff….. I told him I will do it if I feel like it and I just won’t tell him again. Because it is a different world than when we grew up and I want to know what the girls are calling for so I can direct him or my two young men on how to handle themselves if I need to. I do not feel it hurts to check in I would rather do that and have some knowledge ahead of time that they are trying to check out. I talked with my nephew and let him know it’s not that i don’t trust him I want to know what the girls are calling about what is their conversation. He seldom calls any girls they usually call him (fast tails) so I am protective of that. I am about like you ready to arrange some marriages. So I will stay in their business as much as I can. So if you have to be the one to step out and tell some kids how to act then you do that.We are not all here to be liked all of the time anyway. People did not like Jesus and went on and did what he felt called to do and Thanks God he did!!!!!