Pseudo Single Parent
My lovely wife is at a conference in Baltimore for a few days and I am left as the parent in charge. Now this should be a relatively easy time for me. There are no extra curricular activities that I need to be aware of and no appointments that I have to get them to, so a piece of cake, right? Let’s just say that it takes two parents with a lot of patience to make this work.
My son calls to ask me "Where are you?" as I am driving home from the airport. We have been telling the kids for weeks that their mother was going to a conference and would be leaving for a few days. The oldest daughter was shocked at that news when it was announced Friday night. Them not listening is old hat for me but not listening to this extent is something new. It could be the onset of Jungstimers (silent J), that hits in the early teens and lasts for several years. Sometimes it lasts until the onset of Idotimers in the twenties. Anyway, the boy asks, “When will you be home and can I call a friend to come over?” “No, wait until I get home.” My standard, pat answer to all of his questions. That and just plain no.
Now I get home and tell him he needs to do his chores and assign him a few other things to do. He comes back two minutes later with the phone and say, “Mom wants to talk to you.” I already know that there is a mutiny brewing and that I need to be careful. After discussing her flight and other details of the trip, we talk about the boy’s agenda. It seems that doing his chores is going to interfere with his play time. Imagine that. Well, his play time is going to interfere with chores. It is just a matter of turning the problem over. We agree with the second option and I hand the phone back to “the boy” to hang up. After more whining and complaining, the chores get done. Wow, a whole 15 minutes to complete and he spent 30 minutes trying to get out of them. The wisdom of having done all of this before.
There is more to tell, but next post.
Icool
Cobb
My son calls to ask me "Where are you?" as I am driving home from the airport. We have been telling the kids for weeks that their mother was going to a conference and would be leaving for a few days. The oldest daughter was shocked at that news when it was announced Friday night. Them not listening is old hat for me but not listening to this extent is something new. It could be the onset of Jungstimers (silent J), that hits in the early teens and lasts for several years. Sometimes it lasts until the onset of Idotimers in the twenties. Anyway, the boy asks, “When will you be home and can I call a friend to come over?” “No, wait until I get home.” My standard, pat answer to all of his questions. That and just plain no.
Now I get home and tell him he needs to do his chores and assign him a few other things to do. He comes back two minutes later with the phone and say, “Mom wants to talk to you.” I already know that there is a mutiny brewing and that I need to be careful. After discussing her flight and other details of the trip, we talk about the boy’s agenda. It seems that doing his chores is going to interfere with his play time. Imagine that. Well, his play time is going to interfere with chores. It is just a matter of turning the problem over. We agree with the second option and I hand the phone back to “the boy” to hang up. After more whining and complaining, the chores get done. Wow, a whole 15 minutes to complete and he spent 30 minutes trying to get out of them. The wisdom of having done all of this before.
There is more to tell, but next post.
Icool
Cobb
posted by Cobb at
10:20 AM
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