Why She Thinks?

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She Thinks started when Cindy decided that she and her daughter, Ally, should write together, and Ally couldn’t come up with any good reasons to say no. We wanted to see how our perspectives differed as a younger/older woman, mother/daughter, less/more experienced persons, brunette/blonde. Each week, we pick a topic sent to us from our readers that makes us think. We then go on our own and spill our respective guts/brains/hearts out on the page, and then post our thoughts here. To keep things interesting, we don't read each other's posts until we publish them. This means that sometimes our opinions and stories match, and sometimes they don't. That's what makes it fun!

We’re not trying to solve the world's problems, but who knows? Maybe we will.

Read more about Cindy and Ally.
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My folks (especially my mom) had some very definite ideas about child rearing.  When my brother and I were young, there was a certain formality to the way things were done; how we were supposed to act; when we woke/ate/went to bed; and even how we were dressed – that was typical of the times.  Not surprisingly…our dad worked long hours in important jobs (of course), and mom ruled the home (and was the primary disciplinarian).

The “strict” nature of it all came in the form of discipline and manners.  My mom was a no nonsense woman when it came to her children behaving properly.  We were NEVER allowed to talk back, or (God Forbid) utter the word “No” to our parents…EVER.

Of course I tried it…once, and ended up with a mouth full of soapy water.   YUK.

From that point on, the threat of “don’t you say that – or use that tone – to me or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water” (lips pierced and wagging her finger at me) took on a true and ominous tone to which I would quickly back down (no matter what).

There were a few “spankings” along the way (until I got too big to fit across my mom’s lap and we both realized how silly the whole thing was) and more than a few banishings to my room.  But nothing much more in terms of actual “punishments.”

The worst was when my mom would get so mad at us that she would send us to our rooms and go to the kitchen and begin emptying the dishes (or pots) from the cabinets and begin washing them all by hand, while yelling at the top of her lungs (to nobody in particular) about how wrong/stupid/rotten we were on that particular occasion.

When the ranting began…we knew we had crossed the line.

As we got older, rules began to be placed on our comings and goings, and I started to feel the strict boundaries that my folks would place around me until I left for college.  You know…the regular things like curfews, restrictions on sleepovers, and the differences in “school day” activities vs. “weekend” activities.

The hardest was the curfew.  I HATED having to be home by 11:00 p.m. (on weekends!) all through high school, but I think I hated the “rationale” for the curfew more than the actual time I had to be home.

“Mom…why can’t I just stay out to midnight like everyone else!?!”

“Because I want to go to sleep at 11:00 and I can’t go to bed unless you’re home.”

“Sure you can…I don’t care if you’re up when I get home.”

I CARE”  “So you’ll be home at 11:00.”  “PERIOD.”

REALLY???? Can parents really get away with that?

You bet.  I did.  (More on that later)

I too was a stickler for discipline and manners (I am my mother’s daughter) as I wanted my kids to be polite and well behaved…mostly so that we could all go anywhere or do anything together without me having to worry whether or not the kids would act out (and because that’s how I was raised).

Oh they had their moments of bickering and snitty tones and slacking off around the house.

But I swear…they were amazingly good kids.

And sometimes I think it might have been despite my parenting.

I yelled a lot, especially when they were young.

I took the whole ranting thing I grew up with and raised it to an art form.  And I regret having yelled at them so much.

Because I think I scared them.

But as my kids aged…I think I figured out how to parent with a modicum of strictness (and yelling) mixed in with a healthy dose of humor and love.

But I still think I was pretty strict (mean).

They had curfews ‘til 11:00 on weekends too.  OK…Ally had it all through high school but I’m pretty sure we relaxed the rules when AJ got there (and I’m sure that inconsistency and lack of fairness will come back to bite me again and again…)

But I don’t think it ruined them.

They’re really wonderful people.

I’ve never been grounded.  (Really.)  But I don’t think that’s because my parents were especially lenient on anything – it was because I never did anything worthy of strict punishment.

I just chose to spend an incredible amount of time in my room.  I didn’t go out.  I didn’t run around after hours.  I didn’t lie.

And this didn’t happen because my parents were incredibly strict, either.

I was just a really, really good kid.

(I have sources to back me up on this.)

The truth is, I never had the desire to push their buttons or take advantage.

(Well, I didn’t really have a desire to actively push their buttons.  Like, I never took the car without asking or climbed out of the window in the middle of the night.  I’m sure I annoyed the hell out of them with the tantrums or typical teenage talking-back and bitching about things…)

I think that I would describe my parents as “laid back”.

They were our friends, but also clearly Mom and Dad.

They yelled sometimes, but I don’t look back on any of my childhood and think, damn, there was a lot of yelling.  I think yelling is just a part of every family.  And compared to other families I knew/know?  Our yelling was extremely tame.

They were never afraid to say “no”, but they chose to say “yes” a lot of the time.  And I think that’s the important part: saying “no” isn’t a bad thing.  Saying “no” is necessary, especially when a kid is young.  I see kids who have zero respect for their folks, and I can’t help but think that it has something to do with how much their parents let them get away with, especially when they’re young.

(I’m not saying to go all Tiger Mom on kids, either, but I think that there’s a balance.)

(My parents were pros at finding that balance.)

I had the normal rules that all kids have.  No making a mess in public, no talking back (I actually did break that rule a lot), manners, curfews…

If I ever had royally screwed up or pushed some boundaries or broken a single rule, then I assume my parents would have punished me in a traditional way (no TV, extra chores…).  Nothing too severe, but I doubt they would have let me off the hook.

When it came down to it, I just never, ever wanted to disappoint them.  I don’t know if that’s something that’s just a part of me – as a person – or if they ingrained that in me from the beginning.

(Maybe they hypnotized me as an infant or something…)

Either way, I’m very happy with how my parents raised me.

(I’m not just saying that.)

If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to raise my own kids in a similar manner.

I want to be friends with my kids, but I also don’t want to let them walk all over me.  I know it’s not easy to pull off, but – lucky me – I’ve got some great teachers.

(Seriously, I’m not just saying that.)

(Or, you know, maybe I just got so traumatized that I’ve blocked a bunch of horrible things out… I guess that’s always a possibility.)

First of all…I really had no idea what the term “guilty pleasure” was until Ally mentioned it awhile ago in a totally different context.  I didn’t want her to think that I was out of touch or uncool…or… (God Forbid) OLD, so I didn’t ask and just nodded my head as if I was following everything she was saying.

And then it came up as a topic for She Thinks.

Rather than take a chance on writing an entire post based on my ASSUMPTION of what it meant… I called her to see if I was correct.

“It sounds dirty” I said.  “You know…like porn.”

“No Mom, it’s not porn.”  (You know the tone)

“Oh good, I thought that would be really embarrassing.”

And then…a pause.

Well…it still might be.”

OY.

“A guilty pleasure” she went on to explain, “is something that you really like to do, but under normal circumstances (i.e. NOT writing about it in a blog for everyone to see) you would be kind of embarrassed and ashamed to tell anyone else about it.”

Another pause.

“And mom…that doesn’t mean it’s about sex!”

(we told everyone in last week’s post that we don’t talk to each other about sex)

”So for Gods’ sake…keep it clean!”

Great.  My kid feels she has to tell me to keep it clean.

So I racked my brain trying to think of something that I really like to do but kind of feel ashamed for doing and have never shared with anyone else (and isn’t about sex).

Baking?  No.  That’s just something I suck at doing, even though I torture myself by trying to do it every once in awhile.

Cleaning my closets?  No…that would fall under the category of Obsessive Compulsive Behavior…certainly not a guilty pleasure.

Oh wait…I think I have it.

I’m actually quite embarrassed to admit it, and it’s harder to admit than you might think…but…

I LOVE to watch “Gene Simmons and the Family Jewels.

In the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.

OK…it’s not just in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.

I DVR it.  So I can watch it whenever I want.

Don’t ask me what I like about it.  I never liked the band KISS or followed Gene Simmons before.  But there’s something about the relationship of the family that makes me smile.  And they make me laugh.

But now I’m really embarrassed and totally ashamed to have told anyone about it.

So I guess it is a true guilty pleasure. (And it wasn’t about sex…YES!)

I define “guilty pleasures” as those things that you don’t want to admit that you love.  I think it should also be something that you’re not necessarily supposed to enjoy.

(And no, Mom, it’s not about sex.)

Like trashy TV.  You’re not supposed to like it.  You feel dirty just watching it.  But ohmygod you can’t stop watching.

I have a few guilty pleasures.

The first is something that I’ve written about before: young adult fiction.

I love books that were written for girls a decade (or more) younger than me.  I love vampires and wizards and demigods and crazy awesome books beyond description.

Some of the books I read are silly.  Or just plain stupid.  But I just can’t quit them.

I read other stuff, too, but the vast majority of my library is pretty humiliating.

(And may I just offer some advice to anyone else who reads embarrassing titles, whether it’s YA or trashy romance or what have you?  Get an e-reader.  That way, nobody can tell that you’re obsessively reading a book with a cover like this:)

(Seriously, it looks like a soft core porno with a dude who looks like Justin Bieber.)

Another guilty pleasure I have is for a certain ridiculous TV show that defies all logic.

Oh, what to say about Jersey Shore?

Oh.  My.  God.  These people are like really, really disturbing cartoon characters.  I don’t know why I like watching them make fools of themselves or why I love when they fight (actually, I’m pretty sure I love the fights because their accents get super thick when they start screaming at each other and it’s awesome).

I don’t know why I find them hilarious and even (dare I say?) endearing.  It makes no sense – and it’s embarrassing – but what can I do?

The heart is a mysterious thing, and loves what it loves.

My last guilty pleasure (well, that I’m sharing right now), is Lady Gaga.

I love Lady Gaga.

I think she’s amazing.  I think she’s brilliant.  I think she’s crazy and bizarre and a genius.

Actually, she’s so great, I don’t even count her as a “guilty pleasure”.  A guilty pleasure should be something that you feel guilty about – not because it’s bad for you – but because you feel like you shouldn’t actually like it.

And I think everyone should like Gaga.

(Actually, everyone should like YA, too.)

(But I’ll admit that Jersey Shore isn’t for everyone.)

Um…No.

I mean, I guess we could if we wanted to.

But I don’t think we want to.

Funny…’cause we can (and do) talk about just about everything else.  But sex.  It just doesn’t seem to come up in our conversations.

I swear I don’t avoid it.  I don’t really talk about sex all that much anyway.  It’s nobody’s business.  Especially my kid’s.

And, I think that goes for talking to them about my sex life or theirs.

Don’t get me wrong.  They’re both adults and I totally hope they’re having sex (really).  Wonderful, loving, satisfying sex.  But I don’t tell them that.

And I figure they know I’m having sex.

(Why did I just picture them reading this and covering their ears shouting NANANANANA until the inevitable image disappears from their heads?)

But it’s true.  Wonderful, loving, satisfying sex.  But I don’t tell them that either.

I don’t know why.

Although I NEVER talked to my mom about sex.  She was clearly uncomfortable discussing anything about sex, or those “intimate things we may or may not be doing behind closed doors.”  Which for her…included everything from shaving her legs (which was a total mystery to me until waaaay into my teenage years)…to those other things she may or may not have been doing behind her closed doors.

I know my parents were totally in love with each other and were openly affectionate in front of me and my brother…but it never seemed…sexual (somehow).  And God knows they never talked to us about sex.

But I guess it was implied…in the way they looked longingly into each others eyes, kissed longer than expected, or  lingered for what seemed like hours in a hug.  But it was never discussed.

Me…I was pretty open about just about everything when my kids were young.  I was very comfortable shaving my legs in front of both kids (not wanting it to be a mystery to them)…or even walking naked around my room in front of them.  UNTIL I could see it started to make them feel uncomfortable.  And then I made sure I had on a robe in their presence (and started to shave my legs in private).

But that’s not SEX.  That’s just being human, and comfortable in our human bodies (not always an easy thing – but that’s for another post!).

Sex is different.  It’s private.  It is one of the most intimate things we can do with another human being.  And it’s not something I feel comfortable sharing (either way) as a mother (no matter how much of a friend I become) with my kids.

I just think we should all go about our own business…having as much wonderful, loving, satisfied sex as possible…and keep it to ourselves!

So there.

Nope.

Honestly, I really don’t see the need to.  I guess we could talk about it, but I certainly don’t want to.

And I don’t think that she does either.

I think that there’s a very natural aversion to talking to your parents/kids about sex.  Is this a bad thing?  I don’t think so.  I don’t think it has anything to do with shame or what’s appropriate or not.  There’s probably a super interesting sociological perspective on it, actually, but what it comes down to (for me) is this:

I just don’t need to know about my mom’s sex life (eww), and she doesn’t need to know about mine, thankyouverymuch.

It’s not because either of us is uncomfortable with sex or anything.  We’re both sexual (I guess) (also? I just shuddered a little bit, thus proving the whole “natural aversion” thing), we both have sex (I guess) (shudder), we just don’t need to discuss it with each other (thank god).

I don’t think that we’re really missing out on anything.  We have a wonderful relationship, and I’m not left wishing for anything more, especially when it comes to this subject.

(I mean, even the Gilmore Girls didn’t really talk about sex.)

This doesn’t mean that my parents never talked to me about sex.

There are some essential facts that need to be covered between kids and parents (regardless of how comfortable the subject might be): like safe sex, the emotional and physical consequences of sex, consensual sex, and, you know, where babies come from.  My parents never held back or skirted around these issues.

(I think I knew where babies actually came from before any of my peers.)

(Nope, didn’t make me as popular as you might think.)

But after that?  I don’t think any discussion is necessary… at least not for us.

I know that I could probably talk to my mom about sex if I wanted to.  Really, I believe that.  And maybe we’ll decide to talk about it more at some point in our lives.

But really?  For now?  And the foreseeable future?

We can just keep things the way they are.