"You don't care!"

In quotations because, on Tuesday, these words flew out of Y1's mouth in a moment of hormonally contaminated teen-aged angst.  Why...simply because I wouldn't let him stand at the bus stop in the rain.  This was no slight sprinkle.  No, this was a "I'm so glad we live at the top of the hill" kind of rain.  I gave instructions, he gave rebuttal and then he dropped the YDC bomb.  We all know that song about sticks and stone and words being harmless...whoever made that up must have lived in a world where rainbows and butterflies flew out every time someone opened his/her mouth.  Words hurt!  Especially when they are spoken in frustration or anger...especially when they come out of the mouths of those we love the most.

Do I REALLY think that my child BELIEVES that I don't care about him?  No...he knows we do...he's grown up in a loving, albeit LOUD, obnoxious and sarcastic...environment.  He's told everyday how much he is loved...he's heard it all his life.  But I freely admit, sweet friends, he hurt me...broke my heart!  I'd like to be able to tell you that I was calm and level headed and just quietly told him to gather his things and meet me in the car...to where Y2 had fled just moments before...his Mama's not raising a dummy!  But I didn't....Julia came roaring out and let the young man have it with both G-rated barrels. 

In some senses, he is right...I don't care.  I don't care for the huffiness and the moodiness.  I don't care for the disrespectful attitude and shirking of chores.  I don't care for the sneakiness, the lazy school habits.  I don't care for being treated like a second class citizen.  I don't care for the tone that he sometimes uses when speaking to me.  You know the tone...the one that adds an unspoken ", Idiot" to the end of every sentence.  I don't care for the repetitive conversations we have about his room and his remedial cleaning skills, being kind to his brother and yada-yada-yada!

I guess I could have stopped there but didn't.  He needed to understand JUST how much I do care.  If I didn't care, I would have walked away from his blue eyed, 9lb. 11oz butt at the hospital.  If I didn't care, I wouldn't crawl into bed, every so often, crying..wondering if I've scarred him for life.  If I didn't care, I wouldn't push and prod and nudge and shove and bulldoze and encourage like I do.  If I didn't care, I wouldn't harass him about his bathing habits, about keeping his face clean, about brushing ALL of ALL of his teeth.  If I didn't care, he'd never hear my voice and probably not ever see my face.  If I didn't care, he could live on Pop Tarts and frozen pizzas.  If I didn't care, I wouldn't spend the time I do praying for him...during my quiet time in the morning and at various points throughout the day.  If I didn't care....and this is the lynch pin to this whole conundrum...if I didn't care, nothing he said could hurt me.  The same words could have been uttered by a Tibetan Sherpa and they wouldn't carry the same weight as they do coming out of the mouth of my child...the one I carried inside of me for nine months and have generally delighted over for the past thirteen years.

So much of this will be foreign to him until the day his first child is born.  It was for me.  I'd venture to say it is this way for most of us.  Understanding what a parent is can't happen until you are actually there.  Did I speak to my Mama this way?  Probably so.  Did she take me to the woodshed because of it?  To answer a question with a question....does the Pope wear a funny hat?  Shames me to think of how I might have treated her while dealing with my own round of hormonal insanity!  She worked SO hard trying to make a life for us and it was just her...no Daddy in the picture.  This is just part of the game.  Part of the gauntlet we have to run as parents.  Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

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