Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Day Two

...and all is well. We rented The Pacifier and my girl and I watched it after dinner. The boys rented a game. Yes, in fact, I am a bad mother.

One of the blogs I love, Suburban Bliss, brought up the subject of 'summer entertainment' - the challenge every stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) faces during any school vacation. You know, when you're getting the free babysitting compliments of the public school system.

This mom is feeling rather overwhelmed by a long summer of daylight killing, embarrassed about her inferior mothering skills because she isn't planning weekly educational units with craft projects, field trips, and activities all centred around a theme like some whackjob mom at her daughter's school. A theme that changes every week. Every week, folks. Are they crazy? Who has the time for that?!

I don't recall my mother being the Entertainment Director on my summer cruise...do you?! My sister and I threw on a bathing suit and hit the yard right after breakfast, only coming home for food and potty breaks. We never wore sunscreen, rode our bikes without shoes, and a helmet?! Never! If I whined that I was bored she found me something to do right quick and it usually involved picking weeds in the garden or cleaning out my closet. Guess how often we whined? That's right - not fucking often.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I coddle my children in a lot of ways - I'm pretty lenient with snacks, they don't have to make their beds, I don't let them walk to school (eventhough my son will be in grade six in the fall), I call them all 'baby', and my son didn't learn to tie his shoes until he was 7. Stuff like that. My husband is always telling me to 'cut the cord'. But for goodness sake people, we're talking about building human beings here. If you don't ignore them every once in a while and force them to use their imaginations to entertain themselves they'll never grow up to be self-sufficient adults!


Get awesome blog templates like this one from BlogSkins.com