This photo is appropriately titled “Ray of Hope” and I chose it because even though this has been one of my most difficult weeks, I know that if I have hope, and faith, and continue to pray and put all of my trust into Him that I can change myself and be an example to my children of how a child of God behaves.
I’m not kidding when I say one of the worst weeks as a parent I have had. I am not sure if they are acting out because I am working again and I haven’t been home, if they are just so inundated with inappropriate words, actions, and media all day that they think it’s normal, but last week, I was home sick and sleeping in bed with a fever and stomach virus, and it seemed that they chose this time for all hell to break loose, literally!
As if it weren’t enough that I was already getting phone calls about certain children skipping class and getting bad grades. One of them decided a few weeks ago that they didn’t have to go to church every Sunday, that every other Sunday is sufficient, and of course, becuase their father doesn’t attend regularly and isn’t a member of the church, they get away with it. Then my biological beasts want to rebel and say it’s not fair and our peaceful Sunday morning turns into a war zone with shouting and profanities, so I stopped fighting it and fast forward a few weeks and the lack of church participation has definitely taken affect in our house.
So as I was sleeping on this particular Sunday of last week, I was awoken to arguing amongst the kids and had to settle a fist-fight between two of them that I still don’t know what it really was about other than teenage hormones and raging attitudes of entitlement. It ended with accusations and pointing fingers and tattling on each other over social media postings and messages I had not seen. I normally monitor their social media activity pretty regularly, but in my new busy state of both working and taking online courses to obtain a degree, they have decided to take advantage of the lack of attention and one of our children decided to proposition others and was using language so vulgar it made me blush and I was embarrased just reading it. Not to mention the mere thought of what the 25 plus photos and videos that I could not access contained, but knowing how sexual the conversation had become, I could only imagine, and I didn’t want to imagine ANY of these things coming from my child, and this was one of the children–not even one of the teens!! I will get to them in a moment…like I said, this particular week, and really just the first two days, were especially trying both mentally, spiritually, and physically. I don’t think I have cried or prayed so much in a single 24-hour period ever.
So we removed a bedroom door, took away phone usage privileges, and grounded the child after talking at length about chastity and virtue and self-respect. It’s really hard when you haven’t raised a child yourself and have no idea what they may have been exposed to and what has been taught is acceptable to them, but I have hope and I know they aren’t bad kids, they just have bad habits and a lot of inappropriate behaviors have been shown to them as acceptable and it may take a while to overcome it all, but I know that we can.
I know that they want to do good and be good, and I know they have potential to be GREAT! I often say I would not ever want to be a teenager trying to navigate this world today and I am so glad that I didn’t have social media around when I was a kid or I probably would have gotten in WAY more trouble than I did because I was always too easily influenced by others as a kid, so I totally get it!! I just wish they weren’t so secretive and talked to us more about these things they see other kids doing that seem like a fun time or a good idea, until someone gets hurt or in trouble, but I don’t want to go too far off on a tangent…back to last week and the trouble with me being sick…
Sunday was bad, but Monday, the kids went to school, mostly, and I stayed home sick in bed with the stomach virus and fever and barely moved other than to use the bathroom. It was not a pretty time for me. I felt so awful I could hardly walk. When the kids came home from school, I asked for some water and I could hear chores being done. Then one of the teenagers, who shall remain nameless, came and asked for my car keys because they needed something out of the car, so I told them to get them from my purse. Twenty minutes later, Their dad is calling me asking where I am at because he thought I was sick in bed. Confused and disoriented, I start asking him why he thinks I am not sick, I am definitely sick and upstairs in bed. Then he says “if you are in bed, where is your car?” I IMMEDIATELY KNOW THE KIDS HAVE TAKEN IT and I start calling them to which they are not answering their phones, and so this contninues until I call the police to report the car stolen and while I am doing that I GET A CALL FROM THE HIGHWAY PATROL TELLING ME THEY WERE IN AN ACCIDENT!!! Their dad tried to get mad at me for calling the police instead of being mad at them for stealing the car!!! I WAS SO MAD AND ALSO WORRIED NOW WONDERING ABOTU THE ACCIDENT, but it was minor, so back to being extremely mad, also, sick and now have to crawl out of bed to go deal with the highway patrol and my errant children. NOT FUN! So they all got grounded, phones were taken away and priveleges again revoked for the week, then we find out that because of the Coronavirus or Covid-19, they will be granted an early spring break for this week…and I have the week off becuase I was supposed to chaperone the now cancelled sixth grade trip to Sly Park. Guess who did nothing for their Spring Breaks–my kids. Because I am that mom who sticks to what she says and follows through with their discipline. How else will they learn?
My Mormon Life... 