Who is Driving This BUS?

Loss of Control

Everyone asks me after they meet my mother, what was it like to grow up with her?

Well, I could tell example after example of funny situations and different ways that she handled things. She was not like most mothers, although all the same things did happen, we were fed, educated, bathed, and loved, but I look back and my mother didn’t treat us like children, she treated us like human beings, and expected us to act accordingly.

As a matter of fact, when we would start to act like idiots she would simple say, “Go to your room until you can act like a human being”.

I would go to my room, puzzled, and I would sit and think about how a human acts? Obviously, according to my mother, a human apparently doesn’t punch her sister in the face, or throw a fit, or what ever I was doing to land myself in this position. With that simple question she slowly taught me the behaviors that were acceptable in the outside world.

The one thing that I don’t remember about my childhood is my mother ever losing her composer, she never yelled, never flew off the handle, and never showed any weakness. That doesn’t mean that we never got “spanked”, she handled that more like a covert operation, you never knew when that was coming, BOOM, you were checked.

The funny thing was, when we did get spanked, she turned and went on with her day, as if nothing had ever happened, not bothered in the least. Now that I am older and we are friends, she tells me that it killed her to discipline us, but back then we never knew it, we thought perhaps she may even like it.

I hear a lot that these parents are “stressed”. I do understand that parents today, more than ever, have stresses that go beyond money, schedules, marital, and emotional problems, but let me ask, what does that have to do with your choice to bring this human to earth?

My thought here is that these parents that I sometimes see screaming at their children, losing all control, threatening, and showing the kid that they cannot control themselves must feel constant failure. A five year old or even sixteen year old can make you lose control? Where does that put the power?

How are we letting these children raise us?

Why do adult humans let young humans have the reigns?

As parents, don’t you have the responsibility of controlling the situation, or even yourselves?

Thanks Mom, for never making me feel like I was driving the bus…

These Little humans should never feel like Big humans shouldn’t have their crap together, because when they become Big humans they will feel like it is okay to not take responsibility for the bus.

Lizzy