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10:34 p.m. - 2006-01-09 Me...A Good Mom?I raised a sweet little girl into a spectacular grown woman, beautiful and mature, successful and happy in her career. What more could a Mom want. I have given more of the credit for this outcome to good genes and great extended family support and being blessed to have been able to bring her up in a nice town with good schools, but have seriously doubted my parenting skills, reliving in my mind the sometimes embarrassing situations I put my daughter through in her early years. I got sober when Michelle was 11. Prior to that I can't say I was the worst Mother who ever lived, I did try to be a good Mother while also trying to stay as pickled as possible while trying, but lets face it. A pickled Paula does not a good Mother make. Today, my baby called me just to say Thanks....she said I did a good job. Said "Thanks for all that tough love." I said, "What tough love, you rarely gave me any trouble." "That's because I knew that if I did, you wouldn't put up with it, you wouldn't coddle me or worry that I'd hate you if you laid down some rules and make excuses for me." I thanked her for her phone call and sort of glowed for the rest of the day. She dated a boy once who at 25 years old, had credit cards which he used liberally and his parents paid for because he wouldn't pay them and they didn't want the "poor kid" to get bad credit. I guess his parents babied and coddled him all through his wild youth and he took advantage of them and walked all over them. As a grown young man he treated his loving parents apallingly. My daughter used to give them parenting advice and they would listen as if she had some kind of magic words....eventually, she broke up or should I say outgrew the spoiled brat, man/boy. Today, she found herself giving yet another 50ish woman advice about tough love when the woman spilled her story to Michelle about a wayward daughter who ran away and cut her long hair severely so as not to be recognized. The mother was talking to Michelle about paying to put extensions in the "poor kids" hair because it looked so bad...a procedure that costs over a thousand dollars. When I see parents coddle their teens bad behavior, I realize that it's because they love them and don't want to upset them. However, what they end up doing is raising kids who walk all over them and never know how to set their own boundaries. I guess I just raised my daughter with the same rules and consequences I was raised with. Maybe she should say a prayer and a thank you and fling it up to heaven where her Grandma and Great Grandma are. I'm not so sure I deserve any special praise. P. I. Yarnsmith
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