As long as you’re under my roof –
it’s no joke
by Susan K. Williams
As I would walk the ivy covered halls of the university
I was attending just a few short years ago, bits and pieces of conversation
would strike out at me. “I want my own apartment so I can get
away from my mother!” “Boy, I can’t wait to get
out of that house; my parents are driving me crazy!”
Well, of course we are. That’s our job, or
at least a good part of the job description. You see, we parents must
pass a test before we are allowed to become your parents. We are required
to meet strict criteria when applying for parenthood.
One of the major points of creative parenting ability
is attention to details, minute details. For instance, the way you
walk around the house, leaving a trail of bread crumbs, cookies, crackers
and/or popcorn for US to clean up – to say nothing of the shirts,
socks and shoes we find draped over the television sets, hung on the
door frames or on top of the refrigerator.
Details are so meaningful in a parent-child relationship.
They make communication an exciting adventurous journey into a world
of nuances, innuendoes, implications and sometimes, albeit rarely
from parents, distortions of the truth.
Distortions usually come in the form of reasons for:
1. not coming home the same night you go out
2. receiving a “D” in statistics class
3. receiving a “W” in statistics class
Because we’re paying the bills, including tuition,
strangely, we think we’re entitled to:
1. an explanation
2. a rational justification
3. complete enlightment
We also have the uncanny ability to hear and see
certain actions and/or events, another significant ability upon which
we are tested.
Think you can whisper over the phone that tonight
you’re going to hit the bars with that “no good bum”
we told you never to see again? Think again – we heard that!
The driveway will be blocked with an Army tank so you can’t
get your car out. We’re nailing the doors shut from the outside.
We just contacted the local steel company to install bars on all the
windows. And, in case he comes here, we’ve installed a hot wire
all around the yard.
As you head out the door to study with your best
friend at the library, your purse/backpack has suddenly become transparent.
Is that a pack of cigarettes? And, after all our lectures on the dangers
of smoking. Those aren’t my new earrings are they? The ones
I searched more than a year to find? Oh no! Oh my gosh! Don’t
tell me – that isn’t a box of condoms??!!
Well, now you’re going to get it. You’re
on the receiving end of the second most important ability we as parents
must possess – The Lecture. We can and do talk on any given
subject with the expertise of a professional speaker, the clarity
of an English professor, the passion of a televangelist and the resonance
of a trumpet. (I personally received very high marks in resonance.)
Parents also come equipped with a high degree of
curiosity, argued by some to be the most essential element of parenting.
Here’s the way it works: If we want to know something about
our child, what they are saying, what they are doing, who they are
seeing, we simply follow them. We check out their drawers at home,
call up their friends, go to the school, talk to their teachers and
sometimes, we have even been known to sit in on their classes.
This is not called snooping, spying or interfering,
we merely are keeping up with what our children are doing. We want
to know if there is anything going on that we should know about so
we can cut it off at the pass, nip it in the bud or prevent the ship
from sinking. Sometimes, this can be called hovering. My children
called it “invading their space”.
Hovering is an art. It takes skill, cunning and a
natural desire to know everything about your child. The schools themselves
provided some of the best assets for making hovering possible. I belonged
to all the clubs – the booster club, PTA, room mothers clubs,
teachers’ helpers, volunteer office help and any other group
I thought would help me keep an eye on my kids.
Included in the realm of curiosity is the presumption
that your rooms are our rooms – at least according to the parenting
manual I read specifically giving me, the parent, the duty to inspect
the living quarters of the above mentioned children.
We parents have an awesome responsibility raising
our children. We feel it is our duty, our life’s work, to make
sure that everything we do is with their best interests in mind.
So, why on earth would they want privacy when they
can take advantage of all our parenting skills? Why would they want
to move in with strangers who aren’t like us? After all, we’re
only doing it for your own good.
Originally settling in the Tomball/Magnolia area, Texas, Susan raised
a menagerie of animals including calves, pigs, ducks, chickens, ferrets,
rabbits and the usual numerous dogs and cats along with raising children
and a husband. Eventually the children grew up and so did the ex,
leaving Susan in a completely empty nest. That’s when the opportunity
of a lifetime arose and she was able to begin the process of receiving
her life’s dream of an education. Following her graduation in
1997 from the University of Houston, Susan embarked on her writing
and speaking career. Today, she is a communications consultant, helping
people and companies with their communications needs. Susan also is
an enthusiastic motivational speaker, who loves to motivate others
into going after their dreams with her true-life stories; and she
is an accomplished children’s storyteller using her alter persona
of Auntie Suzie to create vivid imagery in a child’s mind with
her original Animal Tails.
Susan can be contacted at www.communicatewithimpact.com
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