lunch

I'm missing lots this week. So so busy, so so tired. With the kids getting into the back-to-school schedule I'm finding I'm just plain exhausted. I attribute that to the bedtime and early morning fights x3 (it was just Serejane I'd have to wrestle into bed and wrangle out of bed for the summer months). I hate nagging, and it drains me.

Kaelan doesn't like making his lunch the night before. If I don't ride his ass and MAKE him get one ready, he won't make one in the morning, unless I ride his ass in the morning. He's hard enough as it is to even get out of bed to eat breakfast let alone make lunch, so the night before it has to be.

Last year I got the bright idea to let him suffer the 'natural' consequences of not packing a lunch, figuring an empty rumbling stomach for a couple of days a) isn't going to kill him and b) might knock some sense into him. Well. Guess what? The damned school phones me up, asks me if we're having financial difficulty, and then sends me a bill for the 'emergency' lunch program they have there. EXCUSE ME? HOW is this teaching my son anything about responsibility? It's not that we don't HAVE food. He's just too lazy to put it in a lunch bag and by 10 years old there is NO reason whatsoever why he can't slap a sandwich and a juicebox in his own backpack. The natural consequence for not packing your own lunch isn't that when he's all grown up, he's going to go to work lunchless, someone there will just go ahead and feed him then send his Mom the bill...
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I think I was about 8. It was right around the time I had convinced myself that my Mom was an orange fairy and not a bus driver. I didn't want to make my lunch. I had a million excuses, WAY better ones than my son has. For starters, we had this INSANE butcher knife that we were supposed to use to cut our bread, because for whatever bizarre reason my Mom didn't believe in buying sliced bread. (That knife, were it able to speak, has a million stories to tell, like the time my sister took after me with it...) You'd only have to nick yourself once with this damned knife to develop a healthy fear of it. I got my (first of many) cuts from it while hacking off a piece of yesterday's sourdough - dried day-old bumpy sourdough crust, the knife didn't dig in deep enough that first try, so I dug it in harder and caught my thumb instead of the bread. I remember it in great detail because that knife is (my mother still keeps the vile thing) SCARY. After that, if there wasn't sliced bread or someone else to cut a piece for me, I honestly thought it was a life or limb decision to make a sandwich.

I didn't do dishes, either. Not only are dishwater and floaties gross, but I actually *am* allergic to dishsoap - which we know now; however, back then my Mom wouldn't buy me rubber gloves. And so if no one else had gotten around to washing up my Thermos, soup or any kind of hot leftovers wasn't an option either. My Mom stood her ground, and didn't care if I didn't have lunch. I'd be hungry and just eat when I got home, or learn to make my lunch. Imagine my mother's surprise when the school secretary called...

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Years later I'm old and wise enough to know why my Mom wanted us to make our lunches, as does every parent who decides it's time to get the kids to make their own lunches. It's twofold: one, to teach responsibility, and two, because frankly, after 8 or 10 years of making your lunches, we don't want to do it anymore. There comes a time when we, as parents, would be remiss to continue babying our children. At some point, they need to learn some pretty basic life skills, somehow, and also experience some pretty natural consequences. The ones who are secure we'll always be there to make their lunches, wash and fold and put away their laundry, and pay their overdue cell phone bill suffer a failure to launch. They are helpless and hopeless and never really learn what it's like to be fully self-sufficient, even if they don't *like* being alone. They gravitate towards roommates, friends, and (heaven forbid) spouses who will pick up right where Mom & Dad left off. I appreciate my mother putting us to task on things like our laundry and lunches, because when it came time for me to move out, I not only had the knowledge but the CONFIDENCE to do these things myself. I know not every "pampered" child is going to grow up perpetually tied to his mother's aprons strings but I've watched enough of my friends struggle with being 'grown up' to know that if their parents hadn't mollycoddled them so much, they might know how to read the fabric care tags in their clothes, boil an egg without turning it into rubber, and remember to save enough money to pay the utility bill THEN buy DVDs.

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Last night, Kaelan was supposed to be on Kitchen Patrol. He refused to put his hands in the icky dishwater and get the utensils, despite the fact we own rubber gloves for that very purpose. I sent him to his room for a couple of hours, but felt sorry for him after the fact since technically for KP Duty he was supposed to dry and not wash them. So I let him eat some supper. With a spoon. In hindsight, the natural consequence for not washing the utensils would have been eating with the whisk. I have noted this to myself for future reference should he (or any other child of mine) again refuse to wash some utensils. I will keep my camera handy.

Comments

alphonsedamoose said…
Way to go Hope. Somebody who actually doesn't do everything for their kids. We need more of you.
ticblog said…
I even buy sliced bread! And they have microwaves now - no need for a Thermos anymore! And get those little tin fruit cup thingies! When we were kids, if you wanted a fruit cup, you got a cup, and put some fruit in it...
Babzy said…
A WHISK! I did manage to get my coffee swallowed and not sprayed all over the computer.

You and your family are taking up residence in my head. When I go to GT today I'll be giggling about this post. They'll think I'm unbalanced but waaaaaait a minute... they already do think that... At least I won't be screeching in their collective faces. I'll just be laughing like a loon.
ticblog said…
my seestor made me cry this morning.

She wrote:

read your blog -

gawd - yes I hate that evil knife. I never was bitten by it like you and Mom. My wound is the one where I yelled at you with it in my hand. I have no idea what we were fighting about, what flamed in me such rage - at such a young and stupid age - but that's my wound. If I never told you before, I'm really sorry. Please forgive me.

(Yes, you have apologized. But thanks again anyway. I love you.)
Laura said…
My brother chased me with a steak knife when I was younger, just before school. Mom was in the car waiting for us, my sister snapped his butt with a tea towel, he chased us with knife into the bathroom. we waited there in silence for 10 minutes, opened the door slowly and he was gone. We looked out the window and saw him in the front seat of the car (which prior was always occupied by our sister in the mornings) just casually waiting for us.

I hate mornings.

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