The Worst Mom

I did it. I'm the worst Mom. And I hate my oldest daughter, Fred. She said so, so I know it is true. And she's not even 11 yet. (Insert sigh here.)

A couple of weeks ago, Fred let me know that she thought she had too many restrictive chores and not nearly enough freedom to do the things that she wanted. I let her know that I understood how she felt, but I would not be taking away any of her assigned chores. (At this point I did not feel like it would be a good idea to tell her that as she gets older, she gets MORE responsibility, not less.) She was not exactly happy, but there was no major contention.

Fast forward to yesterday. She wanted to skip one of her homework "chores," her multiplication practice, so that she could play with a friend. I let her skip this chore over Spring Break, which now I view as a mistake. We got the full-on pre-teen tantrum.

"Don't you ever think about how your kids feel?!" she hurled at me.

"Of course I do," I responded. "Sometimes I just don't care."

In retrospect, that is probably not the most calming thing for a child to hear. I did try to clarify, telling her that the prophet has asked that we teach our children responsibility and work and that I have chosen to give them chores that they are responsible for as a way to do that, even if it makes them unhappy. She remained unimpressed.

"Most of my friends only have THREE chores!"

"What are they?"

"Cleaning their room, making their bed, and their homework!"

So I took her stack of chore cards. There was Make Bed. Okay, that's the same. There was Reading, Math practice, and Keyboarding. All of those fit under the homework category. There was Clean Room, TV Room and Front Room. So I asked her if she thought that her other friends did not have to pick up their things from around the house. (She said that they probably didn't, but I don't think that even she believed it.) That left Practice Piano and Brush Teeth. I contended that her friends also probably had to brush their teeth, so she started in on piano.

"I don't want to take piano anymore!"

"I would like you to continue until you are at least 12."

"Sometimes what a parent thinks is important is not important to kids!"

"I know. But often, a parent has experience that allows them to see that things are more important than they might seem to children."

"But playing the piano is not important!"

I gave her some of the standard things like "Dad wishes he could play the piano" and "I'm glad I have the ability to play piano when I need to" and even used an analogy about how she might not see the importance now, but how it could be better in the future. Of course, nothing really helped and she was crying and angry, called me the worst mom, the meanest mom and told me that she could just TELL that I hate her.

Thankfully, this did not bother me. It bothered me a lot more when I told her that she could go to her room and she looked me in the eye defiantly and told me NO. Instead of freaking out or hitting her (both of which were pretty tempting to me), I told her that if she made anyone else's life miserable just because she was miserable that I would bodily carry her down to her room. She was welcome to stay upstairs with the family as long as she could be decent.

Another thankfully, she was decent. And, with all of Fred's faults and drama, I am grateful that she lets bygones be bygones most of the time. After reading and cooling off for a while, she was back to treating me like (mostly) nothing had happened, smiling, and bossing her little brothers and sisters around, just like normal.

... I am NOT looking forward to teenage drama.