Reaction Note #10 – Adolescents
I do not think too much about raising my children while they are in their adolescents because frankly I am still in my adolescents. In the little examples given in class about positive parents working with their children all I can think is, “oh! That happened to me like what yesterday,” but then again this probably is the best time to hear how to teach adolescents when I can still remember what it feels like to be an adolescent. When I look back on my own life I know that the times that I felt the most love from my parents was when I was an adolescent. I would like to claim that I was a typical teenager, but I was probably brattier than a typical teenager. I truly did know everything and how everything should be.
One of my most cherished memories of my mother holding me was when I was a senior in high school. I was seventeen and at my full height; I thought that I was mature and I believed that I was on my way to complete independence. After getting into a very aggressive and reveling argument with a friend’s father about how I should be acting I drove myself home and wanted to handle the argument maturely and brave, but the instant I saw my mother sitting on the couch I burst into tears. She held me in her arms while I cried. My face paint smeared all across her shirt but she did not care. There we sat until I had told her everything. She stroked my hair with her fingers and dried my tears with her hand and helped me to pick up the pieces of my broken heart by telling me how much she loved me and how much she cared for me.
I never have been a really talented driver. When I started driving I honestly had these daydreams about being a racecar driver, but in all truth the only thing racecar driving would race me towards was a speedy death. One night I was off to a youth group meeting. As usual it was ten minutes past when I was supposed to be to the meeting and I was not there, my hair was still wet from my shower, and I had not eaten dinner. I screamed at my mom that I was going over the roar of the car engine in the garage. She tried to yell something to me from the kitchen door, but I was not listening. Without looking behind me I through the car into reverse, and took my hands off the wheel while I tried to apply on some makeup. There was a loud thump-crash sound. I turned around to see the white garage door bent and broken. I pulled the car forward slightly, pressed the open garage door button, and locked the car doors. Before I had time to escape my mom was standing at the kitchen door screaming my name, but I just kept backed up and drove off.
I never made it to my meeting. I just drove around town for a while, and when I rolled back into the drive way my mom had not left her post. When I get upset I start cleaning, and so within the next ten minutes I was dusting every picture frame in the entire house with orange spray. I was so humiliated and I knew that I must be the worst child on the face of the whole plant. My plan was to run away as soon as I was eighteen and get a job at Amber’s Dinner. I could go to a community college and then my parents would not have to worry about me ruining their lives anymore. There was no way in my mind that my parents would ever want me after that.
As I was forming this plan I literally turned right into my father after wiping down a picture frame for the fifth time. He was standing there in the down stairs hallway just watching me. My Dad has rheumatoid arthritis. He walks with a cane and he has metallic knees to help support his weight. Any time that my dad goes up and down stairs is a big effort, and there he was that night in the down stairs hall way staring at me. I started my prepared speech about how I was sorry, how I knew that he did not want me anymore because I was such an awful child, and how I was going to run away so he did not have to be even disgraced by my presence. All I got out was a soft whispered dad before I collapsed in his arms and started to cry. He just held me there. I don’t even think that he said anything, but he never brought up the garage door. In a few days there was a new garage door.
These moments changed my life. I have some cherished memories about my parents when I was a child, but my memory is not good enough to recall those times. I can distinctly remember these moments though when I knew that my parents loved me and would always love me. What kind of parent would ever believe that they can stop showing affection to their child simply because they are older? The same principles of parenting apply with adolescents as with children and not because I think that adolescents are just big children, but because I honestly feel like adults, retired businessmen, and even garbage men we are all more like children than we want to admit. There is not magic fairy dust that is sprinkled over a teenager that makes them not want to be loved any more than the next person. What does change is how we express that love. I am sure that it is a struggle to learn how to express to a teenager how much you love them. If my children are anything like me I know that it will be a challenge, but it can be done and needs to be done. I know that I am were I am because of how often my parents expressed to me and continue to express to me that they love and care for me.
Friday, November 19, 2010
SFL 240 #9
Reaction Note #9 – Maternal Employment
I think that the question, "should a mother work," is really mind envocking. It seems like a big issue, and one that people feel really passionate and personal about. After considering the pros and the cons I came to the conclusion that it does not matter specifically if the mother or father has a job but the reason why they have that job and how much time with their children for that job.
The sentence that was running over and over in my head after class was to the effect that, "my child will be the same tomorrow, but this job opportunity will never come agian." I thought over my own life and could not help but wonder how especially a mother could feed herself this lie!
I am not even a mother and I recognize how valuable childhood moments are. On Sunday I was sitting on the pew with my nephew, he just got into first grade, and he sits quietly on the church pew now. Every sunday for the past two years my nephew would come over to me, sit on my lap, hand me a pen, and ask me to draw a train on his hands. I got really good at drawing tains, but I just noticed this week that he does not ask me to draw trains on his hands any more. In the few momments while I watched him pick up the hymn book and turn the pages all of those trains I had drawn seemed more valuable than my notes or textbook every could be worth. My nephew is not even my own child and I can recognize that there will never be another time in his or my life when I will draw a train on his cubby little hands. There must be an innumerable experiances like this one for a mother.
That is what really got me thinking about mothers who work. I know that growing up my mom worked a few hours, but she was always a mother first. She had few opertunities to get more hours and a heigher pay but she never took them. In my family I have sister-in-laws who work a few hours here, and sisters who do not have a job. There are women who are at-home-mothers who from what I can observe do not sacrafice as much time or energy for their children as women who work. Converstaionally there are women who work and do not sacrafice time or energy and sometimes not even money for their children. In short I think that if a mother goes to work or not should not be the real question to ask ourselves. The real question I think that we should ask ourselves is why the mother is going to work, and what the mother is willing to sacrafice for her children.
I would do not want to exclued fathers from this, because the truth is that I think the same truth applies to fathers as well. If a father is not willing to sacrafice his own pride, money, and a job title to spend ample time with his children to help them improve, feel supported, and know that they are loved then I believe that he should recieve the same judgement. I know that there needs to be an income coming into the home, but there also needs to be time and energy and love in the home and those are the things that make children develop into mature adults.
I think that the question, "should a mother work," is really mind envocking. It seems like a big issue, and one that people feel really passionate and personal about. After considering the pros and the cons I came to the conclusion that it does not matter specifically if the mother or father has a job but the reason why they have that job and how much time with their children for that job.
The sentence that was running over and over in my head after class was to the effect that, "my child will be the same tomorrow, but this job opportunity will never come agian." I thought over my own life and could not help but wonder how especially a mother could feed herself this lie!
I am not even a mother and I recognize how valuable childhood moments are. On Sunday I was sitting on the pew with my nephew, he just got into first grade, and he sits quietly on the church pew now. Every sunday for the past two years my nephew would come over to me, sit on my lap, hand me a pen, and ask me to draw a train on his hands. I got really good at drawing tains, but I just noticed this week that he does not ask me to draw trains on his hands any more. In the few momments while I watched him pick up the hymn book and turn the pages all of those trains I had drawn seemed more valuable than my notes or textbook every could be worth. My nephew is not even my own child and I can recognize that there will never be another time in his or my life when I will draw a train on his cubby little hands. There must be an innumerable experiances like this one for a mother.
That is what really got me thinking about mothers who work. I know that growing up my mom worked a few hours, but she was always a mother first. She had few opertunities to get more hours and a heigher pay but she never took them. In my family I have sister-in-laws who work a few hours here, and sisters who do not have a job. There are women who are at-home-mothers who from what I can observe do not sacrafice as much time or energy for their children as women who work. Converstaionally there are women who work and do not sacrafice time or energy and sometimes not even money for their children. In short I think that if a mother goes to work or not should not be the real question to ask ourselves. The real question I think that we should ask ourselves is why the mother is going to work, and what the mother is willing to sacrafice for her children.
I would do not want to exclued fathers from this, because the truth is that I think the same truth applies to fathers as well. If a father is not willing to sacrafice his own pride, money, and a job title to spend ample time with his children to help them improve, feel supported, and know that they are loved then I believe that he should recieve the same judgement. I know that there needs to be an income coming into the home, but there also needs to be time and energy and love in the home and those are the things that make children develop into mature adults.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)