From the moment someone finds out you’re pregnant to probably the day your child is out of the house (and in some cases after that) you are inundated with unsolicited advice. I can’t stand it. I particularly can’t stand it when its given on really unimportant or marginally relevant issues.
My mother is quick to give advice and what more, I find it unnecessary and damn hypocritical. This morning my son had cereal for breakfast and the “main course” in his lunch was a ham sandwich. So basically I’m a bad mother because ‘I’m home now’. I guess that means I’m supposed to cook steak and homemade mashed potatoes for lunch.
When it comes to food she has this cute little saying that she ‘eats to live’ she doesn’t ‘live to eat.’ Great, why not have that philosophy about my MY son? Instead, she’s ready to shovel anything down his mouth that he so desires. Soldier (my son) is the type of kid that eats and drinks because he sees not because he’s hungry. And I know that the eating habits a child has influences how they are as an adult. I tell her this all the time and I get an “I know” but that doesn’t stop her from questioning WHY I won’t let him eat ice cream after 9pm the day after he had ice cream at a rare mom and me trip to Dairy Queen.
While I was a full-time college student (I recently graduated) I didn’t have the most time with my son (at least thats what I thought) but he and I were together every night and on weekends. My mother is pretty clueless about what she really views as my problems as a mother. Everything she yells at me about when it comes to being frustrated with my son, frustrates the hell out of her. When I mention that I get the ‘I know but..” Ah, no but’s. I don’t want to hear them.
The fact is I’ve spent more time with my son in nine years than she did with my brother and me combined. I’ve never, on a day off, stayed locked up in my bedroom with my live-in boyfriend. She did it all the time. We never spent time together, ever.
On the other hand. My son and I have gone to baseball games, a basketball game, library, park, to Christmas show (the Rockettes), gone to movies, bowling and played tennis together. The most my mother ever did with my brother and I was when she was married to his father. We did the family amusement park vacations and fairs. Once they divorced, she did nothing with us. When we did get to do something she sent us, with the money, to the movies. She stayed home with her boyfriend.
Yes, I get beyond frustrated with my son, who has all the potential in the world, but who is lazy and gets in trouble at school. I’ve been a volunteer, he has countless books and workbooks, I help him with his homework and he’s constantly in trouble. Thursday and Friday he was suspended (I’ll go there later). My mother, again on the other hand, couldn’t tell you anything about my classes let alone my performance in them. She never read to me, never helped me with my homework. Lucky for me, I was self-motivated or I’d be royally screwed (even more than I am now).
So whether its my mother, June Cleaver or the extra annoying childrenless advice givers unless I’m dangling my son from a balcony, driving with him in my lap on a busy freeway (or anywhere for that matter), giving him pot to smoke or showing a general level of neglect (in safety or education) I’d like it kindly if you were to just shut the hell up. He ate cereal instead of bacon, eggs, oatmeal and freshly squeezed orange juice. Take a look around at the conditions some of the world’s children must deal with. He’ll survive.
