Catering

We all eventually learn it's impossible to be a "perfect parent".  No matter what you do, some day your kids are going to resent that you did X horrible thing to them, be it feeding them lots of leftovers or nothing but spaghetti for a week, or making them wear hand-me-downs, or buying margarine instead of butter, or ... whatever.

My siblings are wonderful kids.  They're pretty easy-going, and there aren't a whole bunch of things they really need or want.  Torrey made me a grocery list of all the foods she desperately wanted me to buy and was mildly disappointed I didn't get her peaches.  But I bought the bagels she wanted and she didn't eat them.  And she's only eaten a few of the grapes and hasn't touched them for the past week.  She asks for something for dinner and I cook it and she hardly touches it.  They asked me to make pumpkin pie last week and only ate 1 piece.  And you know what they've mostly snacked on this week?  Nachos!  I bought the tortilla chips on a whim!

I can't cater to all of their wants.  I've decided I'm just going to cook whatever I want to eat for dinner, and Logan and Torrey can pick at it as much as they want and make themselves more nachos later if that's what they want.  I think it would be ridiculous for me to cook something they say they want (that I don't necessarily want) to have them pick at it and be like, "Ugh, and I don't want to have to eat leftovers!"  That's how I want to do dinner in my family - we'll come up with a weekly meal plan or something, and that's what we're having, end of discussion.  Make yourself a PB&J if you don't like it.

In Nursery one day, a mother told me about her daughter who worries about things that haven't happened yet.  This daughter is mad at her mom for doing her hair and deciding what kind of hairstyle she has.  The mother tries to explain, "Honey, when you do your own hair, you can do whatever you want with it.  But since *I* am the one who has to deal with your hair and brush it, I'm going to decide when and how it needs to be cut."

The little girl kicks and screams and says, "I'll NEEEEEVERRRR be able to choose my own hair!" to which Mom replies, "Do you see my mom coming over and doing my hair every morning? No? I do my own hair. You will be able to do the same some day." and the little girl has been bested and goes and sulks in the corner because her mom is soooo horrible.

No matter how awesome a parent you are, there is going to be that ONE THING your kid magnifies and it turns into a major psychological issue later in life.  (Maybe, maybe not. We all hope we can equip our kids to deal with disappointment!)  "Oh, my mother was so horrible, she always/never did X ..." and another sibling will have a completely different major issue with something else you did.  We don't know what will push other peoples' buttons.  I was sad my parents didn't buy more string cheese when I was a kid.  How could they have known??

I had to wait until I was 12 before I could get my first pet.   I begged my parents for years and years to let me have a pet, and Mom said she wanted to wait until the youngest child was at least 2 years old.  (Torrey was only 1 when we got our cats. BWAHAHA.)  Carmen got two kittens when she was a year old!  But I'm sure Carmen is going to go nutso over the fact that we aren't going to have a dog.  What a mean parent I am!  I know how much she loves dogs these days! (Doggie, doggie! Woo-woof!)

Oh, how hard it is to be a child.  Your parents have absolute control over everything, and even when you get what you want, half the time it wasn't what you really wanted anyway!