My theory about parenting*, since no one teaches us how to do it, is that you look at your own parents and make a series of same/opposite decisions. Which means that every person walking the face of the earth is the victim of a 20-year internal argument their parents were having with their grandparents.
One of the things I chose SAME on was the idea that I am The Queen of Accountability, and that it was my job to constantly monitor my kids for errors in behavior and judgment, bring those errors to their immediate attention, and require explanation and correction. If I did not do this constantly, they would end up being shoplifting crackheads and it would be all my fault.
Many years ago I was visiting a close friend in Texas; and my small, exhausted, away-from-home child behaved about as you’d expect after days of travel and 0 regular meals. She crashed like a Cessna full of opera singers. Which summoned the Queen of Accountability from my head (because oh my freaking god this happened in front of people), and I plowed into the earth right after her.
My friend waited until everything had calmed down, poured me a glass of wine, and said the most astounding thing I had ever heard about raising children. She said (BUM BUM BUMMMMM),
“It’s our job to teach them mercy, too.”
Which, I swear to God, would never have occurred to me in a million years.
*This is misleading, as it makes it sound like I only have the one. I have a lot. I will not unload them all at once (mostly because I have to wait until I remember them to write about them.)
I look for this to be a multiple-post topic.