Old mom leniency

“You never would have let us get away with that,” is a common complaint around here. Always voiced by a older kid about some perceived atrocity committed by a younger sibling. There are twelve years between the oldest and the youngest and apparently the younger crowd is being raised by a different set of parents. Or so they claim.

The bigger scoop is that I don’t care.

You see, I’m tired.

I’m also busy in a different way than I was fifteen years ago. Those years were filled with sleepless nights, diapers, breastfeeding, early homeschooling (no one could read), and a variety of activities at opposites ends of town requiring many, many hours of driving each day. I had to maintain strict discipline or absolutely nothing would have ever been accomplished. I usually felt like the operation here was hanging by a thread so that if anyone stepped out of line everything, including my sanity, would be a goner.

I’ve since lightened up.

The Fisherman, Maurice de Vlaminck - Do you think their mother knows what they are doing?

First off, most of them can drive. If you aren’t there yet let me tell you that it is life changing. You thought it was awesome when they could finally buckle themselves into the car, well let me tell you, when they can get in the car and take themselves to choir or karate you are suddenly gifted with hours each week that were previously spent flinging french fries to the backseat and calling it dinner. It’s the most wonderful thing.

Second, the younger ones have never known life without older siblings exposing them to their chatter. So they have become a little more worldly a little quicker than the older ones. Yes, they were able to watch TV earlier, their music was less policed (because the older ones had it playing all over), and the worst of my and my husband’s offenses, the baby got a phone a year before all of the ones who came before him.

The horror!

That is was for my convenience eludes them.

It is worth noting that the younger three have had a different experience of their parents than the older ones are having. Since I have been working full time through a lot of their childhood there have been a lot less field trips and fun things. They haven’t had a Disney trip (the older ones had that), they spent more time in the car getting dragged around to older kid activities, they do a lot more chores than the older kids did and they did not have the younger more energetic parents the older ones were able to experience.

Also, as I previously stated I’ve lightened up. I’m definitely more mellow than I was ten years ago and much more inclined to laugh things off. I know that my kids are really nice people and the example of their wonderful older siblings is having a good enough effect that might just offset what they think of as my lax parenting.

Personality-wise the younger ones are more mellow as well. Quite frankly they make me laugh all the time. That coupled with the fact that the older ones have turned out well has relaxed me enough to enjoy these last years of full time parenting.

I remember when the last one was born, I was forty-two years old and fairly certain he would be my last baby (because of my age, I would have happily had more). I resolved to enjoy every moment of holding him and rocking him. I never once minded getting up in the night with him because I knew this was the swan song of that stage of my parenting journey and I wanted to savor every moment of it. His next older siblings, two-year old twins, kept me running but also kept me feeling young. Those last years of baby/toddler parenting were such a gift to me, a gift not everyone gets, and I wanted to enjoy it as much as possible. I do wish I had had the foresight to feel the same about the older five. I spent too much time worrying and not enough enjoying and I really regret that.

I guess this is how I feel about these three teenagers as well. I’m savoring these years because there are few of them left to me. In four years I will be finished homeschooling and then that part of my mothering life will be over, never to be repeated. I am very mindful of how quickly that will pass and it makes me want very much to hang on tight and enjoy every minute.

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