If Only I Had Said That

A few days after I blogged about that kid who flipped me the bird and went from being Glinda the good witch to the wicked witch of St. Catharines in a nano-second I had an interesting conversation with a friend about parenting.  They had a situation come up with one of their kids that could have led to serious problems.  It was handled like this..."are you asking if you can do this or are you telling me you're going to do this".  That's where it was left.  The proper decision was made.  It shows a lot of respect for the parent and the parent showed faith in their kid. 

I was fascinated by this and I don't know if I would have handled it the same way.  I have 2 boys who I must say have turned out pretty well.  But when they were "that" age,,,and if you're a parent you know what "that" age is...I had some major problems.  They'd do something dumb, something really dumb, so it was time for dad to give them the goods on how to conduct themselves properly.  But in the back of my mind I was saying to myself.."geez I did the same thing when I was age...check that...what I did was worse".  There are things that, to this day, I still wont tell my parents about and I'm sure my kids are hiding secrets from me that a few hours of water boarding won't pry out of them. 

I guess I should have looked at this as passing down what I thought was my vast store of worldly knowledge.  But I always seconded guess myself figuring they would think that if the old man did it at my age then what did I do that was so wrong. 

My dad would tell me things, warn me about things, explain the complexities of life to me.  Very little of it made it from my ears to my brain.  What I discovered as I got older was that 90 % of what he told me was 100 % correct.  I thought he was being a pain in the ass.  He was being a good parent. 

My father never spanked me.  There were times I wish he had.  He never said much but he had one of those commanding voices that could instill fear.  He could make his point in a few seconds with a few words.  I would take an hour trying to reason with my sons, have a conversation about their problems and hope that everything filtered in.  There, I would tell myself, I've done my duty as a dad.  I was proud, until the little imps pulled a repeat preformance a few days later. 

My experience is that you can explain your experiences to your kids but for the most part they're going to want to experience things for themselves.  I'm a great believe in "do unto other as you would have them do unto you".  I've made alot of life decisions with that philosophy and I hope that's the one thing I've passed along to my kids.  But dammit...I wish I had thought of "are telling me or asking me".