Wednesday, July 05, 2006
We're beginning to see where this Big Attitude that we've been getting from the kids lately is coming from. They've been spending a lot of time playing outside with the neighbor kids, which I was OK with, but now I'm starting to reconsider. First, last night, P (@6) invited the kids over to her place for their fireworks. I decided to buy a few of the tamer sort so that they could do a few on their own, with some supervision, of course. The group of kids descended on us like a pack of wolves, and before I knew it, pretty much every kid in the neighborhood EXCEPT mine had lit pretty much everything we had. They were so out of control, and there were so many of them, that I couldn't keep track of it all, and just started grabbing what I could and bringing it inside. One thing that I wasn't terribly impressed by was that not a single one of these kids (including the 6 year old) were up late for the event... in fact, I had to drag mine home kicking and screaming at 11pm while the rest of them waited for someone to return with a 2nd round. We've had a couple more incidents of kids just walking in and out of the apartment after they'd been invited in previously, and just tonight, one of The Girl's girlfriends came and knocked on the door to see if she could come out and play--at 9:30 at night!!
This afternoon, when I was carrying my groceries in, The Girl hollered, "Hi Mom!" at me from across the courtyard. A couple of the older boys (10 & 13) started yelling "Hi MOM! I LOVE YOU!!" alongside her. Just yesterday, that 10 year old boy was roughhousing and pushed The Boy down on the ground so hard that he cried hysterically for 25 minutes (I was really worried, since that was completely out of character for him). And tonight, Rusty called to tell me that as he approached his car, he noticed 2 girls standing near his car. He groused about how he couldn't see anything in the dark, that he didn't know what they were doing, and hung up all irritated. 10 minutes later he called back to inform me that he figured out what they were doing: they had sprayed perfume all over his BRAND NEW CAR. [Umm, remember my previous posts mentioning his obsessive polishing and cleaning? This is akin to taking a dump in Howard Hughes' kitchen floor!!!] All he can do is wait til morning to see if it damaged the paint.
I'm not saying these are bad kids--none of them are particularly vulgar or violent. But they are all clearly living in some Lord of the Flies type of environment where there are no parents around to set boundaries. Now I'm really thrown as to how to approach this--do I limit their exposure to the other kids? How do I explain to them why I don't approve of this environment? I'm irritated by this on so many levels--first of all, we've been working so hard to get the kids to respect us as a voice of authority, and then to have them have so many friends who obviously lack similar voices in THEIR lives just drags us back to square one so often. Then, since Rusty is on 3rd shift, being able to send them outside has been SUCH a relief--it's just IMPOSSIBLE to keep them quiet indoors for hours on end, and pretty much equally impossible for me to find ways to keep them away from home on my days off without driving me insane and/or losing time at home to do chores, etc. And finally, because of the way The Club (where they go while I'm at work) works, and because of their weekends with their dad, they don't have much consistency in their lives. They don't have friends that they can see on a regular basis to have a "best friend". I had really hoped that a few kids (particularly a couple girls for The Girl) could serve as a bit of consistent FRIENDS for them. Now I feel like I have to rethink the whole thing.
I realize that a bigger, smarter, more kind-hearted woman would welcome these kids into her home and be that missing voice of authority. I can honestly say I KNOW I'm not that person. I barely have the mental/emotional energy to stay consistently strong enough to be the proper amount of "authoritarian" with my own kids! It's just incredibly tiresome--P(who is overweight) is not only CONSTANTLY eating, but constantly bringing out junk food to share with my kids. B is the one talking about how hot Rusty is. T and B are the boys who are really too old to be playing with The Boy and The Girl, and are totally unsupervised and out of control with the rough play, staying out really late, chasing each other and making noise. The Girl insists that T, the 13 year old is allowed to drink alcohol and his mom doesn't care (I doubt that's true, The Girl has been prone to tremendous exaggeration lately). C, A & C-essa are all under 3, and are consistently left outside to play with the older kids without a parent in the immediate area. A is the one knocking on the door at 9:30pm. It seems like every day there's a new "RULE" being broken that in my world just seems like common sense. Do I really need to sit them down and explain that they shouldn't attempt to burn down the apartment building, that they shouldn't eat anything out of the garbage, or that they shouldn't wave guns at policemen?? I mean, how far do you go before you say, "I GIVE UP! I'M NOT YOUR MOM!!" I swear, it takes mental energy not to yell, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS BULLSHIT???" Sadly, I'm beginning to think that that sort of response would be accepted as normal for them.
This afternoon, when I was carrying my groceries in, The Girl hollered, "Hi Mom!" at me from across the courtyard. A couple of the older boys (10 & 13) started yelling "Hi MOM! I LOVE YOU!!" alongside her. Just yesterday, that 10 year old boy was roughhousing and pushed The Boy down on the ground so hard that he cried hysterically for 25 minutes (I was really worried, since that was completely out of character for him). And tonight, Rusty called to tell me that as he approached his car, he noticed 2 girls standing near his car. He groused about how he couldn't see anything in the dark, that he didn't know what they were doing, and hung up all irritated. 10 minutes later he called back to inform me that he figured out what they were doing: they had sprayed perfume all over his BRAND NEW CAR. [Umm, remember my previous posts mentioning his obsessive polishing and cleaning? This is akin to taking a dump in Howard Hughes' kitchen floor!!!] All he can do is wait til morning to see if it damaged the paint.
I'm not saying these are bad kids--none of them are particularly vulgar or violent. But they are all clearly living in some Lord of the Flies type of environment where there are no parents around to set boundaries. Now I'm really thrown as to how to approach this--do I limit their exposure to the other kids? How do I explain to them why I don't approve of this environment? I'm irritated by this on so many levels--first of all, we've been working so hard to get the kids to respect us as a voice of authority, and then to have them have so many friends who obviously lack similar voices in THEIR lives just drags us back to square one so often. Then, since Rusty is on 3rd shift, being able to send them outside has been SUCH a relief--it's just IMPOSSIBLE to keep them quiet indoors for hours on end, and pretty much equally impossible for me to find ways to keep them away from home on my days off without driving me insane and/or losing time at home to do chores, etc. And finally, because of the way The Club (where they go while I'm at work) works, and because of their weekends with their dad, they don't have much consistency in their lives. They don't have friends that they can see on a regular basis to have a "best friend". I had really hoped that a few kids (particularly a couple girls for The Girl) could serve as a bit of consistent FRIENDS for them. Now I feel like I have to rethink the whole thing.
I realize that a bigger, smarter, more kind-hearted woman would welcome these kids into her home and be that missing voice of authority. I can honestly say I KNOW I'm not that person. I barely have the mental/emotional energy to stay consistently strong enough to be the proper amount of "authoritarian" with my own kids! It's just incredibly tiresome--P(who is overweight) is not only CONSTANTLY eating, but constantly bringing out junk food to share with my kids. B is the one talking about how hot Rusty is. T and B are the boys who are really too old to be playing with The Boy and The Girl, and are totally unsupervised and out of control with the rough play, staying out really late, chasing each other and making noise. The Girl insists that T, the 13 year old is allowed to drink alcohol and his mom doesn't care (I doubt that's true, The Girl has been prone to tremendous exaggeration lately). C, A & C-essa are all under 3, and are consistently left outside to play with the older kids without a parent in the immediate area. A is the one knocking on the door at 9:30pm. It seems like every day there's a new "RULE" being broken that in my world just seems like common sense. Do I really need to sit them down and explain that they shouldn't attempt to burn down the apartment building, that they shouldn't eat anything out of the garbage, or that they shouldn't wave guns at policemen?? I mean, how far do you go before you say, "I GIVE UP! I'M NOT YOUR MOM!!" I swear, it takes mental energy not to yell, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS BULLSHIT???" Sadly, I'm beginning to think that that sort of response would be accepted as normal for them.
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