Raising children is hard enough. Doing it sane is insanity. I have a proven system for raising children to yield the best possible outcomes. Outcomes meaning; they move out only once and before they are 30. Outcomes meaning they know how to sort and recycle paper, plastic, bottles. They wash their own clothes, count change at the cashier counter without using their hands. Outcomes like just being a super human being without having to prove it. They just do it.
My strategy is simple. You make the kids think you are certifiably crazy. Not the, "We need to have mom committed" crazy. But rather the "She did not just do that in front of my friend?", crazy. You see I like, rather relish, the thought that my kids think and yes really believe deep in their bones that I might, at any given moment, become unhinged.
Some time in my future, when Johnny comes to the house to pick my daughter up for a date, I double-dare him to blow the car horn. Please! I have been planning for this moment since quite frankly, my mom did it to me. I am going to kindly walk out to the car in my ratty house gown, tell that "borrowed car, allowance yielding, letter jacket wearing butt", to get his a## out of the car and take the 22 steps it takes to reach the front door of the house we kindly like to call our own, wipe his feet on the welcome mat, proceed to ring the doorbell that works just fine and then ask in his best prep school manner if my sweet daughter is home and can receive visitors!? That is what this crazy lady is expecting and by golly I will act crazy to get it.
That day when pushy Miss Sharon blows up my son's phone calling, texting, calling, texting, calling... and it is clear that he either cannot or is not going to respond for whatever reason he has respectfully arrived at, then out comes my crazy. See I have been Miss Sharon and it got me exactly nowhere. Well nowhere I wanted. So I will help all parties out by intercepting that next call to the phone that I am likely still paying for. "Miss Sharon you are most decidedly consistent. You are beautiful, bright and it appears not very busy since you have so much time to ring and text my son's phone repeatedly on end. I would like to suggest you lose his number. Tell yourself you deserve better, you can do better, you are better than this behavior. Do that Miss Sharon so you and I will both feel better."
Yes, I might be crazy. But most of all, I am crazy about the work I pour into these kids. I care about the examples I set, showing them how to treat others and how to draw the line at how they are treated by others. My methods might be a bit unorthodox, but in the end I can hear God saying to me, "You got them to see me and that was all I needed in order to finish a great work in them."
As parents, it is within our constitution as parents to be the authority figure first and friend-like second toward our children. No matter how unwound we become they will come around to understanding we did it for them, acted out at times for them, behaved unbecoming, only when it made a bigger point. And one day they just might have the honor and privilege to be blessed by the Almighty to become that crazy person with their children.
Crazy like a fox. That's me. Dang proud of it! Doing a slight curtsy to all the other crazy moms out there.
My strategy is simple. You make the kids think you are certifiably crazy. Not the, "We need to have mom committed" crazy. But rather the "She did not just do that in front of my friend?", crazy. You see I like, rather relish, the thought that my kids think and yes really believe deep in their bones that I might, at any given moment, become unhinged.
Some time in my future, when Johnny comes to the house to pick my daughter up for a date, I double-dare him to blow the car horn. Please! I have been planning for this moment since quite frankly, my mom did it to me. I am going to kindly walk out to the car in my ratty house gown, tell that "borrowed car, allowance yielding, letter jacket wearing butt", to get his a## out of the car and take the 22 steps it takes to reach the front door of the house we kindly like to call our own, wipe his feet on the welcome mat, proceed to ring the doorbell that works just fine and then ask in his best prep school manner if my sweet daughter is home and can receive visitors!? That is what this crazy lady is expecting and by golly I will act crazy to get it.
That day when pushy Miss Sharon blows up my son's phone calling, texting, calling, texting, calling... and it is clear that he either cannot or is not going to respond for whatever reason he has respectfully arrived at, then out comes my crazy. See I have been Miss Sharon and it got me exactly nowhere. Well nowhere I wanted. So I will help all parties out by intercepting that next call to the phone that I am likely still paying for. "Miss Sharon you are most decidedly consistent. You are beautiful, bright and it appears not very busy since you have so much time to ring and text my son's phone repeatedly on end. I would like to suggest you lose his number. Tell yourself you deserve better, you can do better, you are better than this behavior. Do that Miss Sharon so you and I will both feel better."
Yes, I might be crazy. But most of all, I am crazy about the work I pour into these kids. I care about the examples I set, showing them how to treat others and how to draw the line at how they are treated by others. My methods might be a bit unorthodox, but in the end I can hear God saying to me, "You got them to see me and that was all I needed in order to finish a great work in them."
As parents, it is within our constitution as parents to be the authority figure first and friend-like second toward our children. No matter how unwound we become they will come around to understanding we did it for them, acted out at times for them, behaved unbecoming, only when it made a bigger point. And one day they just might have the honor and privilege to be blessed by the Almighty to become that crazy person with their children.
Crazy like a fox. That's me. Dang proud of it! Doing a slight curtsy to all the other crazy moms out there.
RSS Feed
