The Naughty List

This is a topic I've been meaning to blog about for ages, but it always comes out sounding all whiny. It's about when you try to be a good parent, but end up being a bad parent instead. It's one of the most maddening aspects of parenting, and it happens all the time.

Case in point - the cheerleading incident.  Her  dad and I made it to every game. We took pictures, shot video, and were very enthusiastic. We put up with homework headaches one night a week for months, when she went to cheerleading practice after school instead of Homework Center. We bought the uniform ($50) the turtleneck ($7) the practice T-Shirt ($10) and the shoes ($5). When parents were "invited" to learn a cheer to perform with the kids, I missed work on two afternoons to go to practice and learn the routine, and then embarrassed myself in front of my friends and their children by performing a cheer at half time. I attended the final party/awards ceremony and made a snack. I organized the parents, collected the money, and bought a thank you present for the coach. The evidence is clear - I was a good parent.

Or was I? The team got a last-minute invitation to cheer at a school pep rally one afternoon, and I couldn't go because I had an important meeting at work. My daughter cried. She tried to help me understand how very important this was to her. Where were my priorities?

So I have to ask - did one missed performance undo all the previous support? Or worse, did all the previous support lead to a sense of entitlement? Is she spoiled and manipulative, and it's all my fault? Or you might ask how I could even support her involvement in cheerleading, an activity that is fraught with social and gender issues.

Come on!  That's just not fair.

I think that example is fairly clear. On balance, I think I was a pretty good mom. (And if you disagree, I'd prefer not to know about it.) But sometimes it's less clear. For example, there was the time my friend Laura had her two boys in the car. The apple she'd grabbed for breakfast rolled off the console and into the backseat, where the 3-year-old snagged it and took a bite. When he was tired of eating it, the 5-year-old grabbed it. When he was tired of eating it, he dropped it on the floor.

According to Laura, who was understandably cranky having missed breakfast, her naughty boys stole her breakfast, and then made a mess. That may be true, but the first thing I noticed when she told the story was that she has kids who voluntarily eat healthy snacks. My first thought was to be very impressed by her parenting. And the fact that they shared nicely without being prompted impressed me too.

Hmm.

Now that I'm a mother, I realize just how good my parents were, although when I was a kid, I could have made a good case for the opposite. I have to hope that my daughter will come to appreciate my parenting skills. Because the other day, she was so disgusted by them that she reported me to Santa.

I'm not making that up.

My daughter maintains an on-again, off-again correspondence with Santa all year.  It started when she was little, when we read her a picture book that gave her the idea that Santa would get things if she left them for him on the fireplace hearth.

The other day she left him this letter:

Sigh. The funny thing is that this happened when I was making a special effort to be a good mother. In two ways! I was baking a batch of cookies and asked her if she'd like to help. She loves to cook, so I envisioned a little girl time together in the kitchen, wearing aprons, sneaking bites of cookie dough, making a mess, and generally having fun.

Sometimes when we cook I give her creative license in the kitchen to make up recipes or to try new ingredients. But as an only child, she gets used to having her own way all the time, which has led to some selfishness that isn't going over well with her friends. Because I was making these cookies as a gift and I wanted them to turn out, I thought I could use the situation as a vehicle for a useful little lesson in doing things the way someone else wants to do them. I wanted her to help me, but I needed her to do things my way, and follow the recipe correctly.  She left the kitchen in tears.

And now I'm on Santa's Naughty List.

Figures.