“Mom, if you and dad didn’t get married would I be here?” (this was an actual question from Paker that was asked while I was in the kitchen making dinner)

“Nope”

“Well, I told Mason (not his real name) that you have to be married to have kids and he said his mom didn’t marry his dad and so I told him he shouldn’t be here, so if his mom and dad weren’t married why is he here? How did his mom have him?”

“Well, Mason’s mom and dad loved each other as much as married people so that’s how they had him”

Fortunately Parker didn’t ask me what was up with that because I would have told him that I came about as a result of “love” not marriage and the marriage part came after the “love” part with his grandpa and grandma Jansma.  Would have been great to hear the questions that came about for Grandma Jansma as a result of our conversation.  He asked my mom why she drinks Diet Dr. Pepper, which I feel is a perfectly logical question, so there is probably no limit to the questions he would have asked grandma Jansma if he knew his dad was a love child, and who knows, maybe someday he will ask those questions.

It has been an uphill battle lately in attempting to curb the behavior of my children,  and often times I don’t even try to step in.  A couple weeks ago they were talking about one of their teachers and Aiden said “one of our teachers is so fat we don’t know how she sits on the toilet”.  Parker went on to mention that one of the after school day care providers must also have a similar problem due to her girth.  Should I have chastised them for their contempt of fat people?  I think we all know the answer to that question and I think we all know where I stand on that particular issue.

The reality is that my kids are getting to the point where they pick up on my behavior and seem to think it is ok to mirror my opinions, beliefs, and actions.  The major problem here is that I don’t come with a disclaimer, and rarely do I realize after I say something mean and insensitive about a certain person or a group of people, that my kids are listening and likely to echo what I said at some point down the road.  Furthermore, I see me in them and it is scary.  One day this summer I was mowing the lawn and the tube that sucks the grass into the bagger on my riding lawn mower kept getting clogged, finally I had had enough so I ripped the tube off but it was hung up and snapped back and hit me in the face giving me a fat and bloody lip.  I had never been counter attacked by an inanimate object before and this incensed me, I started slamming it against the driveway as hard as I could, and just as my anger reached its peak Shirley came down the driveway in her minivan.

I have broken remote controls, tennis rackets, and many other objects because of my temper and unfortunately I have witnessed both of my kids flip out on inanimate objects just like their old man.  One morning I was in bed and the kids were downstairs watching TV, I kept hearing something being thrown against the floor.  When I finally made it downstairs Parker told me that Aiden had thrown the remote three times because the DVR button no longer worked, rendering it entirely useless.  In light of what had happened with the Verizon hotspot (I threw it against the ground when I couldn’t get internet and it hopped up and broke our brand new TV) it was tough for me to really tear into Aiden for his actions.  However, due to my procrastination he did learn a valuable lesson.  It took me at least three weeks to order a new remote making it nearly impossible for he and Parker to watch tv on their own because the only way to operate our Dish Network was by using the hopper (that’s what dish calls their version of a cable box/DVR).  Finally, after having to get up on multiple weekend mornings to turn on the TV for them I ended up ordering a new remote.  (One other thing that brought me to the breaking point of getting a new remote was the fact that when watching recorded shows I couldn’t fast forward through the commercials, I was better off reading a book)

While I typically try to not focus too much on some of the things my kids say and do in the hopes that not bringing attention to their behavior will allow it to be swept under the rug and eventually go away, this week I had to step in and dish out some consequences.  One of their teachers takes them home two days a week and after dismissing her I went in to the tv room and found them watching tv.  It was a gorgeous day and I told them to get outside and play while I started getting dinner ready.  This required me to head out and get the charcoal started for the grill, when I got back in the house they had shut the doors to the TV room and were back at it. First of all, they aren’t giving me much credit if they think that merely shutting the doors is going to throw me off the scent of them watching the boob tube.  Secondly, this was quite deceitful on their part as well as disobedient.  I told them they were going to be going to bed right after dinner for their little stunt.  They both flipped out, even though dinner wouldn’t be finished until well after 7.  Eventually when Shirley made it home Aiden had calmed down and admitted that he was in the wrong.  Parker on the other hand was laying all the blame on Aiden because Aiden started splaying on his Nintendo Switch leaving Parker with no choice but to turn on the TV.

As I was grilling Parker approached me and attempted to negotiate a new punishment and was wiling to forego TV until we go to Phoenix, which is in early November.  I said ok and he went in to tell Shirley and Aiden that no screen time for the next couple months was being substituted for going to bed a half hour early.  Aiden immediately objected to this, and would choose crawling over miles of broken glass as an alternative to giving up screen time.  Ultimately, they went to bed about 8 minutes earlier than normal, lesson learned!  It’s the moments where you use your authority as a parent to shape and mold your children that are truly rewarding.

The fact that Aiden acknowledges his wrong doing where as Parker takes no responsibility for anything is somewhat troubling as a parent when it  comes to Parker’s behavior.   His friend Mason, or should I say former friend, came up to me on Wednesday when I picked the kids up and said to me “Parker made me cry today” I already knew that because when I saw Aiden before seeing Mason or Parker Aiden had told me the same thing, and besides wanting to tell on his brother, it also seemed to bother Aiden.  When I confronted Parker he seemed fine with making Mason cry and had an explanation for it, he and Jeremiah were playing a game and it was in playing their game that Mason ended up crying.  Turns out Parker had depantsed Mason in the cafeteria and had also drawn a picture of Mason in jail with all of the other kids outside of the jail looking at Mason.

Is it time for some self reflection?  Is the fact that I can be complete dick the root cause of Parker having absolutely no empathy?  I’ll be honest, when I heard about what Parker did to his friend it made me truly sad, so that’s good right, I at least have empathy.  However, can you create empathy in a five year old if it isn’t innate?  I actually Googled “how to make your child empathetic” and the search found an article in Parenting magazine with eleven (not sure why they came up with eleven, seems like an odd number) tips to help foster empathy in your sociopathic child (that’s my diagnosis for Parker).  One of the tips was to do volunteer work with your kids at a homeless shelter or something of that nature, it’s a great idea, just not sure how I recruit someone to take my kids to do volunteer work.  I was relieved to see that nothing in the article indicated that a parent should change their very own personality in order to create empathy, changing my kid is one thing, but I’m Dutch, and I’m old, this dog aint learning any new tricks.

https://www.parents.com/kids/development/social/raise-a-compassionate-child/