Summers 2000-2004
It was July and I visited my sister who has five boys, in
various years of middle school and high school. She has a sign posted on her
refrigerator: SNACK POLICY. What
followed were the rules and regulations of snaking in her household. “I have to put that up. They are pigs. They would eat everything in this house if I
let them. And then they aren’t hungry
for dinner. They drive me crazy. I can’t wait until the summer is over. It’s so much easier when they are in school.
I don’t have to put up with them”.
I followed this visit up with a visit to my sister who has
two daughters. They are lovely girls and
my sister told me that they are driving her crazy with their lack of energy and
ambitious during this summer months.
“They watch TV all damn day. And
does it occur to them, ever, to run the vacuum cleaner. Would it kill them to help out a little
bit? Now I know why Mom complained about
us all of the time. My God, they can’t
do anything unless I tell them to clean up after themselves.”
I then went to visit my sister-in-law who has four kids,
three girls and a boy. I mentioned that
Kathy and Sharon were a bit annoyed with their kids. And I didn’t understand
how they could be annoyed as the kids are really good company to me. They are funny and generous with their compliments
to me. They are engaging and want a relationship with me. Who couldn’t love them?
“Listen you”, my sister-in-law said to me in her meanest
voice, “We hate them. Do you understand
that? We hate them. They are selfish parasites who do nothing but
complain and eat all of our food. We
hate them and stop sticking up for them. If they are so great, why don’t you
take a few of them home with you? Until then, shut up.”
Well, that certainly offered me a new perspective on the
beauty and rewards of parenthood.
