parenting – New England's Narrow Road

I have been parenting longer than anyone should have to. In 1988 my first kid hit middle school. He was in the “gifted” class and that meant all kinds of craziness was accepted. I was young and could handle it. It is now 2011 and I am still dealing with a middle school age child and it is not fun. I’ve done two others in between – a boy and a girl – and quite truthfully I am tired of school. Tonight I am listening to a long list of my 13 year old son’s issues.

“The teacher doesn’t like me”, ( Eight times now I’ve told him to get a new piece of paper and get to work.) “This is all stupid”. (He’s been dragging this on for hours). For two days in a row I’ve had calls from his social studies teacher saying that he is way behind all the other students with this project. He is grounded and can’t play video games or go to the lake with his friends. It doesn’t seem to light a fire under him.

I can’t even begin to explain all that has been going on, but I am tired. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought that I would be doing this in my mid- fifties! Oh, I did picture time for myself and going out to eat and traveling in my mid-life years. I pictured myself doing adult stuff, watching adult shows and hanging out with other adults, not making cookies for the end of year school parties (for the 100th time it seems) and dealing with teacher conferences. As I write this my son is flipping his pencil around with his leg up on the chair (he can’t seem to write with his butt in a chair) and mumbling about some reason that his teacher hates him – once again. Anything to waste time. He could have had these pages written hours ago. Now he is drawing on a penny, next he will HAVE to pat the cat, and on it goes.

I’ll do what I usually do, tell him to finish and leave it on the table for me to view in the morning, and go to bed. It is exhausting.

I have long believed that every couple should start out with a teenager. No baby, just a teenager. It would be great birth control.

I don’t know how I will survive the next five years of school with homework and drivers ed! I know what is coming and I am dreading it more than ever. My other three kids are grown and they turned out to be great kids. My child rearing was suppose to stop there, but nothing in my life seems to go as I plan and when I ended up pregnant at 40 the one thing that depressed me most was thinking about all the years of school I would have to do again. That nightmare is here.

Well, we do what we have to do and if we are lucky we have help. I have no help.

Walking the trail New Hampshire outdoors — Walking with my daughter

Skip Ahead to 2021

Yes, time has flown by and now my 7th grader is a grown man. He lives with his girlfriend and is a kind and caring young man. As I have re-read this post I realize I’ve forgotten the tough times, thankfully. My son has turned out well and I am still relatively sane.

I’m still alone, and no one will ever give me credit for all the years I nearly lost my mind raising kids by myself, but the job is finished. My own peace in knowing that I did my best and my kids are okay to go on into adulthood well-equipped is thanks enough, I guess.

Life goes by pretty fast. My kids will be fine without me, and I can go on to wherever we go next knowing that.

kids in summer on a raft at a lake swimming and playing — My son (that difficult 7th grader) and daughter

I have been dreading summer. I am the single parent of a 12-year old who needs activity – lots of activity. I work at home. I live in a small, rental house – about 1,000 square feet. He plays video games and watches tv in the living room which is right beside the kitchen where I have my computer set up at the kitchen table.

I listen to iCarly, Big Time Rush, Fairly Odd Parents and Spongebob all day – well, only when I’m not listening to him yell at his video games. He is a loud child who likes to scare the cat, make random strange noises, and thrives on noise.

Don’t get me wrong, he does go outside. We live near a lake and he goes swimming with a couple of friends who live up the road. But those friends have a big family and take trips all summer. We live on a dirt road and bike riding is tough and I don’t want him riding alone.

I don’t have relatives or friends close by to go visit, and I need to get my work done anyway. We don’t have our own home and since it’s a duplex, I am always worried about him making lots of noise outside with his friends, so inviting friends here is not helpful.
Every day we struggle with what to do. I get up early and begin working around 4:30am and he sleeps until 9am or so, but after lunch the day really drags.

I never planned for my kids to not have siblings, but the plans I’ve made have never come close to coming to be. At my age all my friends have grown children, money for vacations and traveling, and look forward to summer. My older son will be visiting for a couple of weeks and that will give us something to do. I’ll be cooking and the kids will be hanging out, but if my son is occupied it will be a big help.

Meanwhile, I will be getting very little done work-wise and my blogging takes twice as long since I can’t think straight! Is it really only the beginning of July?