Saturday, July 02, 2005

It's back .. and .. Out Assed

The Kyle has returned.

Here is a 9 year old that convinced his dad to drive him to Kentucky from Florida two weeks early of his scheduled return date. He guilted him into bringing him home early. I told Tammy, that if I were him, I would have put my foot down and told him that he was scheduled to stay until July 16 and he was staying until then. Tammy says her EX won't do that, as he is afraid that the kids will not love him. I see that in lots of parents.

I was asked on a particular job once, to be a foreman. I was to supervise 10 men and handle several large projects within the paint building at Toyota in Georgetown KY. I accepted the job and they hired a crew to work for me. The guys in my crew were all travelers (union electricians working out of their jurisdiction). Two weeks after we started, I approached my Area General Foreman with a list of my men. He asked me what it was. I told him it was a list of my men and the order in which they were to be layed off. He was shocked. He said he couldn't get the other foreman (there were 9) to do that. I told him that when I accepted the job as foreman, I knew that laying off the men when we got close to the end was part of the job. When I accepted the foreman position, I accepted everything that came with it.

When I became a parent, everything that came with it became part of my job. Part of that was telling the kids "NO." Part of that was accepting that there will be times in their life when my kids are not going to like me very much. I have to trust that my parenting will be such that the love they have for me will carry through the times that they don't like me. It is part of the whole parent package.

OUT ASSED

I remember once that my youngest, Heather, didn't want to go with me one weekend that was my weekend. Usually, I had been watching them at their mom's house in Nicholasville where they lived. She would spend the weekend with her fiance'. That way the kids were close to their friends and in their own surroundings. This particular weekend that was not going to happen. H pitched a fit. She did not want to be in Lexington. She decided that she was going to have a miserable weekend and she was going to be as much of an ass as she could be. I decided that I was going to show her that I could out ass her any day. I put her in the car with me and she traveled with me as I did the things I had to do on that Friday night. Normally, I would have left her at the house for the hour I needed, but not this weekend. It was the big ass contest weekend. I had to stop by one of the regular karaoke spots I attended to pick up clothes for victims of a house fire (see .. Even asses can be humanitarians). We were going to get something to eat. I told her to pick a restaurant. She didn't like anything. I drove up the restaurant corridor on Nicholasville Rd in Lexington. She didn't see anything she wanted. I gave her one last chance. I told her to pick a place or I would. She refused. I picked Arby's. It was right beside the place I needed to be. She decided that she wasn't going to eat.

I made her go in with me. She got out and slammed the door. I made her open it again and close it correctly. She went inside but refused to order. I ordered for me and we sat down and I ate. When I finished, we went to the FRAME to get the clothes. She sat outside the door (it was inside the bowling alley) and waited. She fumed.

When I was don't there we left. I explained to H that the condition of the weekend was up to her. She could make it as miserable as she liked or as good as she liked. It was up to her. She decided that she would make the best of it. I rented a couple movies (we were originally gonna see a movie at the theater). I got her something to eat on the way home. The rest of the weekend was great.

Sometimes you have to do the things that are not popular to be the parent. It is just part of the job. No wonder so many kids are not equipped to be parents. They have had no good example.

If saying NO is providing a good example, my kids had many good examples.

Actually, my daughters are very well adjusted loving kids. H, who lives with her mom, is spoiled, but that is out of my hands. I still tell her NO. I still parent her. It is just part of the job.

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