First Posted in May of 2016
"Sometimes Raising Children
Is Like
Being Pecked to Death by a Chicken"
No matter where you live, raising children is not for the faint of heart. Needless to say a sense of humor is a most important survival skill. I find that day to day life is much less stressful when your kids are all grown; you have somehow survived, and now it’s time to enjoy grandchildren – the most wonderful of all creations. I am totally “into” my grandkids, who are, of course absolutely wonderful in every sense – even when the younger ones band together and begin to lurk and skulk about in tandem – silent little Ninjas on an imaginary mission of some sort. If they would start not to be wonderful, I have learned that whatever the problem is, it will pass with a little love to get them through – or - I can always send them home to their loving parents. (Actually I haven't had to do that yet.)
I figure that I am entitled to enjoy my grandkids as I survived raising a son and a daughter… good kids, but they still dragged me kicking and screaming through the usual growing-up challenges – I found myself to be ever captive but … willing to help. I have to tell you that my hair is totally white. The loss of color happened prematurely, and I earned every single white hair. Frankly, I blame it on my son’s four wheeler experiences in combination with a certain fearlessness and his belief in his own immortality and on my daughter’s tendency to love and adopt animals – of all sorts… hamsters, fish, bunnies, dogs, cats, horses. She actually trained an old pulling pony to jump logs. She was about 7 years old at the time, I think -- maybe even younger.
Further -- I feel compelled to mention that the poor driving skills of both of them during the first year or so of having a driver’s license also contributed to my premature white hair phenomenon. My daughter nearly totaled a car shortly after she passed her driving test. I think it may have been one day after. One Day! The terror that comes with that sort of experience tends to hang on for a long time in a mom who tends to worry over even minor things. I will say though that at least she didn’t have speeding tickets in four states in one year like her big brother, so there is that for which to be thankful. By the way -- I no longer ask him about the status of that "tickets in one-year" record. I just assume that he has matured on that front + he lives in a Midwestern state that already has a high speed limit -- one which I find excessive to say the least. What can I say? He comes from a family that has a race car driver in its background. He feels the "need for speed" -- or did at one time.
Nowadays -- I have to admit that I take a certain perverse pleasure in listening to both of my children discussing their child rearing "situations" as well as when they call to ask advice. I particularly love it that my son called to ask how I handled it when he was out late past curfew which, in truth, was never -- that I know of. He laughed when I told him that I used to go to bed early and set the alarm for 15 minutes before he was supposed to get home, so that I could be at the door to give him a nice long hug and to ask about his evening. It worked for the most part – both kids knew I would be giving them that hug when they got home. It was always my hope that they would think about that hug and welcome home talk. I think they did. Then again – they may have left the house after I went to bed so that I never even knew that they were out – I don’t want to even think about it. I have told them not to talk of such things in front of me as I am just starting to relax a bit on the worrying front now that they are handling their own stuff and raising their own children. They are, by the way, doing an excellent job of it all. (They now ask me nicely not to share their stories in front of their children. Oh the struggles of temptation….)
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