Parenting 201

I had what I think may have been a bit of an "a-ha" moment.  An epiphany, if you will.  Parenting took a lot out of me.  I gave up job opportunities, did without, passed up, skipped over, rescheduled, dropped, so many things, it just got to be natural.  I loved being a mother to my son.  He's such a good kid, I couldn't imagine my life without him.  However, I must admit it took a lot out of me.  I'm kind of tired of the idea.  He was a bit of a late bloomer, had a few stutter starts, tried a lot of things, but think he's really going to make it.  He's considerate, respectful, a hard worker.  It wasn't easy.  If you've ready any of my other entries you know that he joined the Air Force and has been away at basic for three weeks today.  Not being able to worry about him has been so freeing.  My mind wants to think about other things besides him and it feels good.  I know that I did the absolute very best job I could have raising my son.  I have very few regrets.  What ones I do are so insignificant, I know he'll figure it out.  I'm ready to move into the next phase of my life and I'm excited!

However, there's one catch.

I have someone living in my house that apparently still needs parenting even into his middle forties and I'm pretty angry about it.  Actually, I'm not angry about it anymore.  Say like up until yesterday when he did something really juvenile when I decided he could do those things, I wasn't going to let it drag me down.  Where in actuality I laid down on the bed for 30 seconds and cried that I didn't want to do "this" whatever "this" was.  I sobbed.

The truth was, he'd lied to me.  Well, maybe not lied, but he'd done a trademark "in-laws" move.  He manipulated me the way he would have manipulated his parents to get them to let him do what he wants to do.  He wanted to buy something he knew he shouldn't.  He knows our situation.  He knows we don't have extra money.  See, whenever his parents would say there was no money, it would be because something new had been bought like a TV or a car.  Then there would be a comment that they didn't have money because they'd just made the purchase.  Then eventually there would be another purchase and that would put them in that same situation they felt they needed to state, "We don't have extra money." This cycle continued and continued.

Meanwhile, his mother would buy expensive clothes for my sister in law and hide them in the trunk.  Sneak them into the house and then act as if she "had" that particular item.  One time, there was a coat that she'd been forbidden to have.  His mother bought her the coat and his dad recognized it.  All hell broke loose that day.  She got to keep the coat.  This sneaky, manipulating, lieing stuff is natural in their family.

The problem I return to is I don't want to be the parent.  I'm done parenting.  I don't want to be lied to or manipulated so he can get what he wants.  He's an adult.  He knows our situation, he knows he shouldn't be making extra purchases, yet he still feels the need to lie to me about it.  Oh my God.  I wish he'd grow up.  If he wants to buy something, I have no problem with him buy it.  He just needs to remember that it's not going to be anyone's fault but his when we don't have enough money.  Every day in the adult world is full of decisions that we make.  We make them knowing all the facts and knowing we probably shouldn't anyway, but we do and then we deal with the consequences.