A Time Without Parental Duties
Summer is over. School is back or almost back in session from K-12. The preliminary rush and chaos of pre-school shopping for clothes, school supplies, lunch boxes, haircuts, eyebrow trims, shoes, backpacks is done and expensive. It is a crazy time for any parent. It gets crazier when the kids are the 6-12th grades. They are more picky, sensitive to shape and color and on and on. By the end of the pre-school activities, parents are done, too. Fried at driving from store to store, fighting crowds, spending money for the perfect first day event. Crazy!
Of course, with summer done, there are no school age kids nagging, whining, laying about like zombies with nothing to do because everything they wanted to do has been done. They are so ready for school! Of course, by the end of the first week, their tune will change. Summer came and went, yes, there were times of fun making memories, going places, nothing to do, sharing gossip or hanging out at home. If you were a parent at home, you are no doubt so glad that school is starting! You want a break from the ball and chain impact being a parent has sometimes. I mean, you cannot drag your tweens or teens into things they absolute do not like. If you do, the rebellion begins. The passive aggression occurs with deliberate sabotage of what is suppose to be quality parent-child time! OMG! How many times have we gone through this?
Younger ages are so much more compliant to the parent-Gods. They do as you say. Not so by 6th grade and beyond, at least not without constant griping about how lame it is, how stupid it is, how embarrassing it is for them to be seen with parent-Gods in a public place. Oh, the wear and tear on a parent's psyche and well being!! God, give me strength and forgiveness!
God does. It is called school! Now, from 8 a.m. to at least 3 p.m., THEY are gone! Freedom! Peace! If you are a working parent, you always get the refuge of the office BUT you always are keeping tabs on them at home or after school. For the parent, it is instinct, it is a compulsion, a legacy event from when they were little ones. So difficult to let it go. Now, the tween or teens are fairly independent and for them, it is SO annoying to be called even a few times to "check up". The tone in their voice speaks well to that. While the tweens\teens are self-sufficient, the parent worries about the S or B or G words (sex, boyfriend, girlfriend) and whether they are doing what you did at that age. Are they REALLY doing homework?
Freedom from kids, as you can see, never really occurs, psychologically, speaking. Even long after they go to college and beyond, but, enjoy the trials and tribulations, the first 10 years go fast, the second 10 years, even faster. Soon, you will have so much freedom from them that it will actually bother you.
