Parental Influences

I often wonder what kind of boy Dylan will be. Will he be more like me (kinda shy sometimes, discriminating) or like his father ( verrry competitive, sports loving, very outspoken, center-of-attention type). I look at his 2 year old self and can already see some maverick-type attitude in him. I think he’ll be more like his dad. Hmmmmmmm…..Or is that just a 2 year old asserting their newly found voice? I wonder if he’ll listen to the stories that I will tell him and the lessons that I have learned. If he is ANYYYYYYTHING like me, he won’t. I just hope that he will not get hurt in the process….after all, as the saying goes, “a hard head makes for a soft ass” (well…..that’s my rendition of it ..hee hee.)

I don’t think that I appreciated the tools that my mother gave me to succeed and navigate through this world until I was in college. My mother likes to tell the story allll the time of how when I was young (4 or 5ish) that I saw some little kid doing something they shouldn’t have been and just acting bad in general. I turned to her and said “oooooh, Mommy…..they better be glad that they are not YOUR child…” LOL But I knew how to act….. that comment showed that some “training” had been imparted to me…. At a young age.

I was not a bad child by any stretch of the imagination, partially because my mother did not ALLOW me to “stretch” too far from her watchful eye and ANY time. I always said that she was overly protective and I STILL think that she was, in MOST respects. Even though I now see MOST of her lessons, I still do not see WHY she had to be sooo hard on me sometimes. I was not a person who snuck out the house, who had guys over, who snuck out to see guys, who wore inappropriate clothing or who thought they could say any ole thing to their mother…..hellll naw…… I ain’t crazy! LOL My mother was the most civilized person, but she could strike fear into me in 2 seconds flat.

Me and a girlfriend of mine were talking the other day about upbringing’s and what not and she ( who reads my blog) told me her parents pretty much let her do and go where she wanted to (she and her younger brother and her older sister). She had no bedtime, no curfew, and could spend the night at her friends house all week if she so chose. I couldn’t imagine! Now you would think that her parents were the unloving, cold type, but touché….. just the opposite. Her Mom is thee SWEETEST person on the planet! Now, her Dad is a little stern, but her mother…….you couldn’t ask for a sweeter person! I told her that if I wasn’t back at THEE precise time, Peggy Ann was looking for my black ass. I couldn’t imagine being able to go and do as I pleased. I told her that your parents were SOOOOOO lucky that you all were mild mannered (she has 2 siblings) and that ya’ll were running around allll buck loosy, all around the town! LOL My mother was waaaaaaaaay to protective for all that. I told her that though Dylan is a “boy” he would NOT be allowed to come in anytime he wanted and go as he pleased and she didn’t understand why. Well, the way I see it, I WANT him to have some fun, but I also want him to respect the fact that he IS a child as long as he is in my home and that he get’s “privileges” like these…….it’s NOT a right, nor should he expect that it is a given. Now, (as many parents have said, and I’m saying it too) when YOU have YOUR own shit…..do as you like, but until then……. No deal.

Quick story: When I was 12 I asked if I could go go-cart racing with my best friend (whom my mother knew and LIKED her mother) and her 16 year old sister (who my mother also liked). They were going to leave at about 6:30 or so. The answer was a resounding “no….. you will be out too late”. I . WAS. PISSED !!!!!! It was ridiculous! Preposterous! I am not a baby!!! We woulda only have been out until 10:00 or so….. I was thinking, heck I stay UP later than THAT on the weekends!”

Hmm….. I know that me & my son will have the saaaaaame battles, because boy-child or NOT, he will NOT be allowed to do whatever or go wherever or with WHOMEVER he wants!!! There’s toooooooooo much shit to get into and it’s MY job, duty, task and assignment to make sure he DOES NOT see his way clear to be curious about ALL those things and get into a buncha shit. I don’t wanna bury my son or have him be a thug or abusing some substance (alcohol or other). So, as long as he is under MY ROOF……ya’ll know the rest. GAME OVER. MY RULES. I will let him have fun, I will PROBABLY (if he’s a good kid and gets those grades) let him have MORE FREEDOM than my mother EVER let me have. And NOT just because he’s a “boy”. See…..my husband believes in that double standard of letting boys do more, and be out more than girls. FUCK THAT ! I do not, and it ain’t going down. If I have a daughter, she will receive the SAME leeway that my son received. If I trust him to be out at a certain time, why shouldn’t I trust her??? I hate those double standards! LOL

I also want to be real with my son and tell him about the fucked up shit so that he can KNOW the real. My mother sheltered me from all kinda shit……R-rated movies, sex, porn……you know all that shyt. I WILL SHOW HIM ALL OF THAT….at some point. Yes, I said it…. ALL. OF.IT. Because you BEST believe that if you don’s show it to him, that his lil ass is gonna see it SOMEWHERE. Men find their way to the darkside LOL But seriously, I want him to know that I am his mother FIRST and foremost, but that he can come to me & his dad and trust us as well. All kids need to feel safe with their parents. But if he gets out of line and I need to lay the hammer down, so be it.

There’s this Asian chick that I work with and she has 3 dayum kids. She had 2 of them in a 12 month period (i.e. one MONTH after she had the 2nd one, her shouldn’t-have-been-fuckin ass got pregnant!). She says that her oldest who is 4 routinely “growls” at people he doesn’t know and she said that she was “surprised” that “he didn’t growl at you when he first met you….. I was so pleasantly surprised”.


WTF????


I would beat the horse-hog-shit outta my son if he was “growling” at someone when he met them. See…..no home training. My son knows NOW that there’s only SO FAR he can take that telling me “no” shit (I gives a fuck about terrible two’s….if I tell you to come here and you can tell I’m serious….which he can….. you DO NOT tell me no and keep stepping. Or you gon find my hand on dat ass…for real). I just shook ,my head. That’s why these GROWN ass men think that they can talk to women any ole way…..NO. FUCKING. HOME . TRAINING. She ain’t training him….no I take that back….she IS training him. Just the wrong way, that’s all. **shaking my dayum head***

You know...when i was about 12 my then best friend who was 11 (and was, admittedly fast) called these guys (that I didn't know NOR did I know that she had called) to meet us at the park. The guys were about 2-3 years older than me. Well, it was getting dark----quickly. Goodness, whyyyyyy did my mother come looking for me (I was my mother's only child and she was verrrrrrrry overprotective of me) and came upon us literally just standing and talking to those boys. She threatened to beat me when we got upstairs and told my girl that she was telling her grandparents IMMEDIATELY (that's who she lived with). After that day she FORBADE me to speak to or hang out with her ANYMORE, because of the same principles that your grandmother extolled. I HATED her on that day and many after that for you see, we lived in an apt. building and this girl was the ONLY girl my age IN IT. I was lonely and pissed. I would often sneak up to her apt. and sit and talk with she and her grandma, but I couldn't stay long. There were no more outings for us. A few years later I moved with my dad on the other side of town when my mother took a job in Florida. I had long since gained more friends in highschool and moved on. I saw her when I was 19 or 20 and she had 3 babies by 2 different DRUG DEALERS, one of who had been shot and killed not six months earlier.

It then hit me, i mean REALLY HIT ME, that my mother was right.....birds of a feather DO flock together. I hope this is a lesson that my son learns early………

I guess parents really do influence (sometimes unknowingly) how your do things.