The first thing I suggest is take ALL those “DIY”, help books about how & what to do to assure your child will grow up to be a successful, well rounded teen & adult! They are ALL BS! If you research in to a lot, (not all), but a lot the authors either don’t have kids or their kids are out of control, in drug rehab or estranged from that parent anyway….
OK, now that you’ve done your research & realized I was right about those DIY authors, here is the first & probably the most important thing to remember, ALL children are born hardwired! What do I mean by this you ask? Well we are all born with certain traits which make up who we are going to grow up to be. I am not saying that this means your job as a parent is obsolete or not important because it is the most important job you will ever have in your lifetime.
I am certainly not perfect & I can tell you I have made more than my share of mistakes, as I will continue to do. That is OK though there is no manual on raising children & I don’t claim that this is one. I can only tell you that by the grace of the Goddesses, a lot of trial & error & the way God hard wired my daughter I have an amazing, well rounded, beautiful, smart 16 year old daughter with a maturity well beyond her 16 ½ years!
Let me first start by saying I was raised by a wonderful single mom, (my dad was in the picture as much as he could be, he lived in the city which was about an hour+ drive away, he didn’t drive, he was 13 years older than my mom so he was on social security & he had a small 1 bedroom apartment in Rogers Park), he did the best he could & I love him dearly, he passed when I was 17 though so for most of my life it was my mother who did everything for me. My mom, (Gods bless her), worked 2 jobs, teacher by day & waitress come Friday & Saturday night as well as Sunday brunch. Needless to say I was alone a lot. I won’t say I met the “wrong” kids I just met kids who were like me, they all had parents that were either never physically around or some were not mentally or emotionally around. We all found other ways to feel a part of something, we smoked, drank, did drugs, were promiscuous sooner than we should have been. I cannot talk for anyone but myself, however looking back now I realize I was looking for love, acceptance & mostly my mom’s attention, (I realized the worse I was the more attention I got from my mom because she had to pay attention to me)! I would have parties in my mom’s home well she was off working weekend nights to make sure I never wanted for anything. I repaid her for this by taking off when I was on the cusp of 17 & marring my on again off again boyfriend who was now living in California! I was with him for a little over 5years, married for 5 of the years I was with him. So by 18 I was pregnant, buying a house & being an adult long before I was ready too. I lost my daughter as she was a still born, (this just fueled are already tumultuous relationship), I finally decided at 22 to divorce him & come back home. (My mom welcomed me back with open arms). I became very wild & promiscuous upon returning home because I felt I missed some much of my youth by marring @ 17 as well as going through all I did in those 5 ½+years. I was out every night with my best friend at the time & we would go to the local bars every night. This is where I met my daughter’s father; he was a bouncer @ the local bar I frequented often. I had an ex who was stalking me at the time & he was extremely nice to me so we began dating, we dated about a year before we realized neither of us were in love, we did remain friends with benefits for quite some time. 3 months after we broke up & went to just being friends with benefits I discovered I was pregnant, I found out very earlier in the pregnancy thankfully because I was still out almost every night drinking & still parting, (mind you this was after being told I could never have children from the trauma I of the birth of my first daughter who was a still born. Needless to say I wasn’t willing to have my uterus taken from my at 19yrs of age, (despite that I was in continuous pain as well as years later discovered I had a malignant tumor growing in my uterus), I kept my uterus & still took precautions, (was on the pill), as you hear stories all the time that girls who supposedly can’t get pregnant do. I found out in May of 1994 that I was pregnant! I stopped ALL the drinking & parting right away as I knew if this pregnancy was meant to be I wanted it & wanted to do all I could to make sure the baby was OK. I went out & bought all the books about what to do & not do for a healthy pregnancy; I also bought a ton of books on how to raise a happy, healthy baby, etc… I was so excited & spoke to the father, (who at this point was my ex BF), I explained that I don’t know if this pregnancy will go to term or if I’ll even be able to deliver a live baby. I explained that I know this is not ideal & I apologized however there was no way I wasn’t having this baby! I also told the father he was welcome to walk away or be part of the baby’s life & I would understand if he walked away. Fortunately for my daughter he remained in our lives, (we agreed that she was the most important thing & we would do our best to not fight about things & remain friends), this has been the case for 16yrs., (don’t get me wrong we don’t see eye to eye & have fought but for the most part we have stayed civil with each other for our draughts sake. So now here I am 24, pregnant, single & scared to death! Needless to say after a 3 day long ordeal of labor, complications close calls on both mine & my daughters part, February 17, 1995 my 6lbs, 9oz, 19 ½” long literal miracle was born @ 11:14am! I was thrilled & couldn’t wait to take her home & start being the best mommy, (I read ALL the books I was going to be the best parent & she was going to be the best baby, the books said so, LOL)! Needless to say I realized rather quickly that those books LIE! I was doing all the things I learned in the books, however my daughter didn’t read the books so she didn’t know how she was suppose to react to the things from these books?? But I digress…shortly after the 1st year of her life I tossed the books & started to trust my gut on what to do & how to handle situations, (One of the books suggested instead of spanking, cuz according to this book all that will teach your child is violence, it stated to give them a time out, a minute for each year they are old, OK easy right? Well trying to keep a rambunctious toddler in time out isn’t the easiest task so the book suggested I physically hold her arms & legs & sit on her if needed to keep her in the time out…). Hmm, I’m thinking if I have to physically bind their hands & SIT on them this would harm her more than a swat on her very diaper padded behind!
This is all for now, stayed tune for my opinions on raising children into great teens…
