Let me start this post by stating: I am no novice when it comes to being around and caring for children of all ages, from birth through college. I started babysitting for a neighbor's infant son when I was 13. My sister trusted me with the overnight care of both her children when they were tiny babies, and many times after that over the years. My best friend has four kids (count them: FOUR) and I'm one of the few people she could call (well, before I left the country, that is) who would babysit all four of them without batting an eyelash.
So a rookie, I'm not.
Still, I am learning there is a marked difference between taking care of someone else's kids for a few hours or even a couple of days, and actually LIVING with kids. There are things no one thinks to tell you about how children behave on a daily basis, that I am now learning the hard way. Things that sometimes make me sigh a lot during the day.
Like when boys forget to put the toilet seat down afterward... or worse yet when they forget to put it UP beforehand.
Like when a young child goes through a "Non!" stage and refuses to eat something he ate willingly enough just days before... just because he's testing the balance of power, as children often do.
Like when a teenage girl decides to test the limits of her curfew and arrives home two hours later than she should have.
Like when the teenagers manage to completely ignore the dirty pots and pans in the sink or leave their snack residue all over the kitchen for someone else to clean up.
Like when the oldest child stops by for a meal and to dump his dirty laundry, but doesn't think to offer to take out the trash or clean up a mess he might have made.
Even the nicest, most wonderful kids can seriously test your patience as a parent or as a step-parent (to be). Children are, by nature, self-centered creatures; that's their job, if you will. As they get older and begin to interact more with the wider world, their job is to develop an awareness that they are NOT the only (or even the most important) people on earth, that other people have needs too, and that they have responsibilities as members of a family and members of the greater society. It's the job of the adults around them, to constantly and consistently set rules and guidelines to teach them this awareness so that they can grow up to become well-rounded individuals who can function in the world at large... and to cope with the inevitable push-back that always seems to follow the setting and enforcing of these rules and guidelines. We set the rules... the kids look for the loopholes, the exceptions to the rules. It's a bit like a dance but where each side is trying to be in control, to be the one who leads while the other follows.
The trick for the parents is to keep leading. While getting gray hairs, wrinkles and heart-burn from the stress of childish tantrums and power struggles, sleepless nights waiting up for someone to come home when they're late and haven't called, and from trying to survive the race to get the kids grown up, out of the house, and successfully launched into their own lives in one piece.
Up until now, I've been exempt from all of this; babysitting doesn't come with the same struggles and problems as parenting. Which is why I actually look younger than my younger sister who has been married with kids for over twenty years.
She hates it when I point that out. I'm thinking that it won't be long now before she can chuckle at me behind my back.
