YOU ONLY GET ONE SHOT - No Re-do’s

You can have as many shots at marriage as you want. You can divorce and pick someone else, or you can divorce and re-marry the person you originally chose. You can stay married to the same spouse, renew your wedding vows and celebrate with another wedding if you want to. That’s a good thing. And, you can do any of that as many times as you want. I guess the only real rule here is that you have to divorce one person, before you marry another, and I hope that rule never changes.

Raising kids though, you only get one shot per child. That’s all. One shot. And, I don’t care how well you think you are doing, you’re going to find that these kids have their own agenda, and will end up doing what they are destined to do any way. In my experience, it doesn’t always work to use the same techniques on one child that worked on another. Though each child inherited half of the mother’s genes and half of the father’s genes, they are still individuals with separate souls, spirits and personalities. You have to keep coming up with different plans constantly. For example, I would ground one child, who would take it like a pro. Send them up to clean their room or give them a chore to do, after which they were sent to their room to think about the horrible deed that got them grounded. The room may not get cleaned, but this is the same child that would not repeat that same offense twice. However, they would soon devise a plan by which they can get around it in a different way, and a simple play on words might get them off the hook.

On the other hand you have a child that won’t take grounding well at all. This child will scream, cry, beg and carry on, hoping you will relent. I learned the hard way, that instead of relenting, you say something like, “When your dad gets home, we’ll see what he says about you rolling a man hole cover down the street into the Sheriff’s patrol car.” This is good for at least a couple of hours of peace, and sometimes until Dad gets home. This is where Dad has to be a firm disciplinarian. If he can’t be, then it’s back on Mom’s shoulders. This is when I started taking stuff away, and possibly loading up some charity bags full of their most prized belongings. And sometimes that worked. As I said before these two children are just different people. They respond differently.

NOTE: The manhole cover incident is only an example. My girls never rolled a manhole cover down the street, but I don’t think my brother ever got caught for it. And further, I only found out about it from an old neighborhood friend that just told me not a week ago.

There is more than one “phase” in a child’s’ life whereby they do stupid things. How many adults out there can remember this scenario? I mean, as a child. Go ahead. Go back there in your mind, and put your self in the position of being grilled by one or both of your parents. I guess this goes without saying. Very uncomfortable, isn’t it? However, no matter how the question is posed to the child: "Oh, why on earth did you do that!!!?" The answer will always be, “I don’t know!” The reason for that is actually that they really don’t know. In other words, the child knows that they did something incredibly stupid, but they just don’t know why. They can’t tell you, no matter how you pose the question.

I cannot tell you why, at the age of 7, I cartwheeled down the front steps of Denver Elementary School. Even though I executed the cartwheel perfectly, I came out of it only to run straight into the flagpole with my head. It should have knocked me out cold, but my cousin and playground companion, Judy, was there to pick me up. And, instead of telling me what an incredibly stupid thing I had done, she took me aside to soothe the growing lump on my forehead. She reminded me much later in life that she baited me by daring me to do it. I never could leave a dare alone.

After the kids leave the nest, you find that they still do some stupid things. In as much as you are still trying to offer guidance, they still are ignoring it. Other people who have experienced this before you remind you that there’s really nothing you can do about it any more. If they didn’t learn before leaving the nest, they will just have to learn it on their own. The only thing you can do about that is keep the communications open and observe how they do things. You will see that the some of the methods they use, and that you disapprove of are the same methods that you used. The methods you learned from. Now you know better, but you have to stand back and let them learn that for themselves.

When the kids are finally grown, it doesn’t matter if you approve or disapprove of their choices or actions. They have to start using what you worked so hard to teach them. They are about to get their pay-back with their own children, your grandchildren. Things change dramatically from there. And, you know what to do. You know that children will do what grandparents tell them to do before they will even listen to their very own parents. The reason for this is that you finally know how to get the desired results from a child. It took raising your own to get to this valuable bargaining position. You can now use on your grandchildren what your finally learned by raising your own. Your parents were able to get your kids to mind, and now you know why. There ya’ go! Ante your chips and play your four aces!

By the way, there are no perfect parents. Ozzie and Harriet Nelson were a real life family, with real life kids. They just happened to get their life aired on T.V. It was a great spring board for their very talented rock star, Rick Nelson. They were certainly not without their share of family woes. The Clever family will forever remain a fictional family that everyone measures their growing own up days to. I’ve been guilty of that myself. This is very unrealistic, indeed. How grossly unfair life is! Where is June Clever when you need her?

I am aware that some of you are under the impression that your mother was June Clever. If you are one of those folks, step forward into the circle with the group from the Lucky Sperm Club, or children born into incredible wealth. We will just label you June's Kids. You are to be congratulated for your incredible luck.

And, another thing; Not only will your children still give you more pride, joy and happiness after they are grown, but, there is no rule or guarantee that after they leave the nest that they can’t make you mad, hurt your feelings or break your heart. You are their parent for the rest of your life, and you are still susceptible to all of that, because you love them, no matter what. And that, gentle readers, is what makes the world go round.