I’m a mean mom

I’m a mean mom, I’ve accepted this fact and I guess, my kids will too. I can hear my mom telling me “Be careful what you say, if you say you’re mean, your kids will think you’re mean, if you say you’re nice they’ll think you’re nice. To an extent she’s right and I usually try to live by that but in this case, I think I’m ok with being a mean mom.

Anthony’s mid-term grades came in Friday. I knew something was up when he greeted me at the door with head hung low. “Hi, Mooooom.” (You know, that long drawn out ‘O’ that’s accompanied with a frown.) He handed me a packet of paper and said that it was grades. Obviously, being one of the sharper pencils in the box, I figured out that they weren’t good but he’s always hard on himself so I still had high hopes.

Yea, I should have listened to him. They were bad. Really bad.

(Ok, don’t panic.)

Me: “Anthony it’s Friday night, you’re spending the night at Grannie and B-pa’s and me and Dad are going on a date. We’ll talk about this tomorrow after the party.

Nothing like putting off today what you can do tomorrow. Plus I needed a bit to read thru it and compose my response.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon after the party for my niece and nephew.  

(By the way, the Oreo Truffles turned out great again.

I’m getting this down to a science! I whipped out 80+ in just a few hours. I even had time to tie cute little rainbow colored ribbons on the end of the sticks.)

The grades were actually a bit better than I thought. The letters were still bad (D’s and F’s) but it’s not because of lack of understanding it’s from not turning in papers. I was worried that somehow in the few weeks of school and homework I’d been missing some major struggles somewhere. I was relieved that the individual papers he has turned in were all A’s or B’s but seriously disappointed that it all went down hill because of not turning in work. Work I knew he’d done because his teacher and I check off his daily log every day. So, we set an organization plan in place to help him find his work and get it turned in on time as well as a plan for the teacher to keep me informed if something’s missing so I can help hold Anthony accountable.

There’s a fine line between hand-holding and supporting. We try really hard to help Anthony be successful but not do it for him. He is the type of kid who has serious organization issues, serious! I could dump out his folder every day, organize it and go thru each paper with him but I don’t. It’s his job. My job is to look at the tracker and help with the homework. Honestly though, it’d just rather do it for him. I know he would get much better grades if I did but that’s not the point. (Right?)

That solved the issue but we still had to deal with the consequences. That’s why he was hanging his head on Friday, he knew those grades weren’t acceptable and he was going to be in trouble. (At least I’m a predictable parent, right?) So, grounded it was. Grounded from video games, lap-top (other than homework) and choice in T.V. The last one is a bit sketchy because its not that he’s grounded from T.V. because its always on in our house (yea, I know, I know) its that he does not get a say in what’s on or get to turn it on when we are not watching it.  Regardless, he accepted his punishment and the terms: Grounded until grades improve to above at least a ‘C.’ His teacher assured me that if he stays on trend with the quality of his work and turns in everything from here on out, his quarter grades will come up easily. Still, he has a long road to go.

We’ve talked about grades for years, discussing what would happen if he got bad grades. I’ll admit that I don’t really want to punish him for this; I think his work is good it’s just the missing assignments. I kind of envisioned the whole punishment for grades thing would be for lack of trying or being too distracted to study and do homework appropriately, thus grounding would solve the distraction issue. But, because we’ve said for the past 3 years that bad grades are punishable offenses in our house I kind of had to follow thru.

Yesterday, he came home from school, did his homework and had to do his daily chores. Yes, he has daily chores. Not to be confused with weekly chores. Daily he’s responsible for emptying the dishwasher, taking out the trash, cleaning the rabbit cage and switching the loads of laundry. Weekly he has to clean his room. (I mentioned I’m a mean mom, right?) We don’t pay for chores either. He can do extras around the house to earn money but we’ve always said that regular chores are part of life, (no one pays adults to keep a clean house) so no money for chores.

Anyways, mid-chores, he started talking about a friend at school who’s “so lucky!” Said friend (supposedly) never gets grounded no matter what and gets paid (Paid!) for every chore he has to do. All this was said with that oh-so-sly sideways glance. That one that all pre-teens master that both sneaks a peak at parents as well as gauges if that parent is buying any of the b.s. spewing from the pre-teen. Obviously, I figured, this was a ploy to see if I felt sympathy for poor grounded Anthony and as a doubly whammy, to see if I could be guilted into paying him for chores. Thankfully his peripheral vision is right on and he could see that I wasn’t buying it. I was smiling that closed lip smile, raising my eyebrows and shaking my head yes. (Come on Mom’s – you know that look – the , oh-yea-right-nice-try look) I was mentally gearing up for the same discussion we’ve had before about these subjects figuring I’d have to once again reiterate that dad and I’ve chosen our parenting style based on our believes on what’s best for our children and we can’t judge what other parents decide nor can Anthony compare his childhood to another kids. (Blah, blah, blah) Before I could begin my soap box speech, Anthony said: “But I know mom, it’s just who you and dad are. You’re preparing me for real life and teaching me about responsibility and all that junk.”

Aside from the “junk” I was totally impressed. He even said it serious and with out the eye roll. I fought the urge to defend the other parent, not wanting Anthony to think that the parents of the other kid were not preparing the kids for real live and teaching their child about responsibility but I had to remember this was a 10 year old. He wasn’t making that mental leap; it never even crossed his mind. So, I held my tongue, told him he was right, I ground him and don't pay him for chores because I love him. I then reminded him he still needed to take the trashes out.

Maybe being a mean mom isn’t so bad at least its not if they get why I'm mean.