Today's subject was mean little girls. I've seen these little girls. I've seen them and more importantly I know some of them as adults. Mean people suck. Mean children... well I blame their parents, but mom and dad notwithstanding, mean children are just sad... but really annoying.
On the flip-side, R's little girl is an absolute doll. She's a good kid who wants to please but even she has her moments. Overall she is pretty assertive about playtime and making her wishes clear. She's pretty easy, though, because she's sure I mean business. When I say TV off there's a protest, but the TV goes off.
I think the only time she pushed her luck was when she told me "my mom let's me." And my response to that was, "When you're at your mom's house, your mom makes the rules. But in my house, I am in charge, so we play by my rules." She sort of gave me a look like she wanted to question, but I think I was pretty clear. As for discipline and enforcement, never would I think to discipline her in any way other than possibly taking away a privelege or a giving a time out.
Funny, but my mother used to give me time out and I liked it. I had things I liked in my room. I spent a lot of time in there anyway so really this wasn't much of a punishment. For R's daughter, it's excruciating. She plays well on her own but she much prefers an audience.
My biggest worry for R's daughter... well besides the fact that she lives in England and we never see her... I can illustrate it with this little vignette into our lives...
One afternoon we were heading out to drive somewhere... Anna was anxious to go. R decided he needed cigarettes so he went back into the house. Anna told us, "When I grow up I'm going to have cigarettes too."
As you may imagine this was met with horror on my face. I replied, "I really hope not sweetie. It's bad for you and it's very stinky." I'm a reformed smoker and quite vocal about it.
R, bless him, agreed with me.
Anna is very cognizant of where her Dad smokes and where her mom smokes. She often hands her dad his lighter or whatever. Everyone in England smokes so I hope she doesn't choose to do so, but if she does, I hope she eventually decides that it's bad for her and very stinky.
I remember telling one of my girlfriends to lock the door on her bedroom to get some quiet time. She looked horrified. I told her she should tell the little hellions (her boys were 4 and 5) that unless one of them was on fire, that door would remain shut for 15 minutes. If they disobeyed her or misbehaved during that 15 minutes there would be hell to pay but she deserved her 15 minutes to breathe.
That woman told me that I had made the right decision to not have children. She might be right, but I just don't think when you're 5 you should be in charge of the whole family. If that makes me horrible, then rightly so.
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