Bitch Slapped Back To Reality

Just when I was starting to feel pretty good about myself and my “mothering” capabilities, alas, I am bitch slapped back to reality.

The notion that one of your children could be a mean spirited individual or a bully is a devastating thought.  After all, what does that say about you? But worse then that, is the shock of learning that your child, the one who is generous and charming, attentive and kind, genuine and loving, is actually capable of being mean.

Flashbacks of preschool years come flooding back to me when my youngest, Aaron, was three years old and I had to place him in Preschool for the simple fact that he was antisocial.  It would be almost a year and a half later until he would actually play with a child his own age, because for some strange reason anyone his height or shorter was a “baby” (which apparently meant he wasn’t) and he didn’t like “babies” (which, as a matter of fact, he has not had a change of mind about because about a month ago when they did “flour babies” at school, you know instead of egg babies, when I asked him why he hadn’t dressed up his flour baby or made it a crib, he told me that he had no desire in being a father and he would make sure to have protected sex — yes, he’s 11 and knows about protected sex, and what?).

Anyways, yesterday was a devastating day of discovery for me.  After texting the mother of one of his friends for information about her daughter’s birthday party this weekend, she texted me back informing me about the party and something about 10 closest friends and how she thought the other girl who they were partnering up with to do a double party with would have invited him because this other girl was much closer to Aaron, blah blah blah and THEN she goes on to tell me that on Sunday, MY SON was being mean to her daughter, calling her names and even pushed her off the water tube (they were in the lake)!!!!

Are you fucking kidding me?? MY SON did this?? This can not be MY SON!  It must have been another boy.  My son is a gentleman.  He would never push a girl! Or would he?

Well, much to my disappointment (and honestly, the hurt that a parent feels when they experience disappointment is crucial) yes my son did do these things.   When I confronted him about it, he admitted to performing such a devious act (with a reason attached, of course).

Well then, where does that leave me?  My girlfriend (albeit she doesn’t have children and is rather young) tried to pacify me by telling me, “everyone makes mistakes”.  Fuck that.  Being mean is not a mistake I’m willing to tolerate.  And no parent should.  Maybe we would have much nicer people in this world if we paid more attention to when our kids were being mean.

But the truth is, I never would have learned about this incident had I not sent that message to my girlfriend.  And so this brings about another issue…a community of parents that need to work together to correct the behaviors of our children.  By her telling me what occurred, I can in turn discipline my child (or not, I guess it depends on the parent).  Speaking of discipline, I took him off the grid: I took away his cell phone, deactivated his Facebook and he will not be seeing any of his friends for an indefinite amount of time (I don’t believe in grounding for a certain amount of time)…needless to say, for him it’s crappy way to start off the summer vacation.

But taking away “prized possessions” is not really the answer.  We can ground our kids all we want and take privileges away from them, but is that really teaching them anything?  The other day I read an entry by Why Is Daddy Crying about the current craze with Sillybandz,  and a mom had commented that she uses them basically as leverage: when her daughter hurts their younger son, she takes away the bands and then gives them back to her when she is good.  Is that really teaching her the importance of not being mean to her little brother?  Is taking away some rubber wristbands teaching her to be caring and thoughtful and respectful of another human being?  Yeah, I don’t think so.

Now, of course, a diplomatic conversation and dialogue was conducted (after I cooled down) about the bad choice in action and why it was wrong and why it was a bad choice.  And this is not a one-sided conversation (me talking only), no, this is two sided where he is allowed to express how badly he feels and why it was wrong (and I better hear what I want to hear).  But that’s still not enough.

Soooooo, the mega daddy of the discipline in this case:  My husband and I will be taking Mr. Aaron to his friends house this evening where he will apologize to her directly (rather than on the phone or via text) and then he will apologize to her mother and father.  Because if he had the balls to push this girl (who is much smaller than him) off of the water tube, then he better have the balls to apologize to their face.

Peace Out!!

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