Consider yourself warned!
A guide for those who think they want children.
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Well, we are all homebound because of the coronavirus. A few weeks ago, my son called to tell me that he was coming home for spring break. I was actually surprised. My thought was, “Don’t you want to go somewhere with your friends?” Nope. His friends from high school were coming home for spring break and he wanted to spend time with them. Later that day, my son texted me to tell me that Syracuse told the students not to return until March 30th (at the earliest) and that they would be having classes remotely until then. Ok. He wasn’t too happy about that development, but hey, it was only to March 30th. He could live with that. However, the hope that this situation would be temporary was short lived when he received an email this week informing him that the kids will be home for the rest of the semester. You can only imagine how “happy” he was to read that. This kid had adjusted well to freedom. Now, he has to answer questions like, “Where are you going?” “When will you be home? “Who are you going to be with?” You know, questions he didn’t have to answer when he was living away from home.
My daughter’s school was proactive. Weeks before the NYC Board of Education finally shut down schools, her Catholic high school already had a plan in place and start date for remote education. She started her remote classes yesterday. While she is sad that she won’t get to physically see her friends every day, she is happy that she no longer has to wake up at 5:30 am to get ready for school. And, she is happy that she doesn’t have to be out of the door at 6:45 am to get to her school in Manhattan by 8:00 am. All she has to do now is literally roll out of bed, brush her teeth, put on a shirt, make herself some breakfast/tea, and sit in front of her IPad a few hours a day. What a luxury. As of Tuesday, I am not at work. I am home, indefinitely. I am choosing to think of this time as a (forced) vacation. My plan is to get up every morning to exercise (hopefully, I’ll start tomorrow), take a shower, write, and work on some of the projects I started but haven’t finished. I am also going to catch up on some movies and tv shows I have been wanting to watch. I just have to remember what I wanted to see. So, just like most of America, we are all stuck home … inside … together. All I can say is thank God my kids are teenagers!! They can fend for themselves with little supervision. I don’t have to watch them do their schoolwork, or pretend to be a teacher. Those days are long gone. I can’t imagine having young kids again. I don’t know if I’d have the patience one needs to home school them. Let’s not kid ourselves, most of us really don’t want to be responsible for teaching our kids every day. Can you imagine having to stay on a schedule and plan, all day, every day? Nope. Not me. I can’t do it, and I don’t want to do it. That’s why they go to school. Let the trained professionals teach them. If you have little kids, God bless you! I wish you all the best. Now that parents have to be “teachers”, I am sure that more people will have a deeper appreciation for professional teachers and for parents who homeschool their kids. I know I appreciate them. Besides, let’s be honest. Everyone is not a natural teacher. We all can’t do it. If you can’t, you may want to find someone who can. Know your limits. I know mine. So, now you know, and you can … Consider Yourself Warned! If you have kids, what are you doing to keep them busy while they are homebound?
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Kids are so lucky. They get a winter break. I mean, they just had Christmas break. Why do they need another one so soon? When my kids were younger, I used to drop them off at their grandparents for this break. My kids were lucky. They had grandparents were youngish, healthy, and retired! And, most importantly, they had grandparents who wanted to spend time with their grandchildren. My father would call me up just to find out when the kids were on school break. They always wanted their grandchildren to stay with them. This was great for me because even though school was closed, work was not! Because of my parents, I was able to save many of vacation and sick days, days that I was able to use in the summer to spend time with my kids.
As the kids grew older, going to their grandparents’ wasn’t as much fun anymore. Now they were able to take the subway by themselves and they wanted to spend time with their friends instead. Also, winter break falls during basketball season. Instead of going to his grandparents’, my son preferred to play basketball with his friends. We all knew that this was part of their transition into “adulthood”, and we all took it in stride. Besides, I made sure that the kids still spent time with their grandparents during Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, a few weeks ago my daughter was home for the winter break. Every day, I got up, got ready for work, kissed my daughter goodbye (who by the way was just lying in bed chilling like she didn’t have a care in the world), and went to work. I. Was. Jealous. I want a mandated winter break!!! I deserve it!! I work hard all year. I want a free week that doesn’t count against my vacation and/or sick time. Granted, my daughter did have a science project to work on, but she didn’t look stressed about it at all. In fact, when I came home, this girl was relaxing on the futon binge watching some cartoon. Hey, I want to binge watch a tv show too! In fact, there are quite a few shows I want to binge watch. I can’t think of them right now, but they will come to me eventually. Since I knew that my daughter would be home, I made sure that I went grocery shopping and made food for her. After all, I didn’t want the poor girl to starve. All she had to do is literally put the food on a dish and heat said dish in the microwave. She didn’t have to cook anything from scratch if she didn’t want to. Although, she did make some sugar cookies on Monday. I got to eat about four of them. There were no more left by Wednesday. The last two nights, of her winter break, I came home and made myself a light dinner. Being polite, I asked my daughter if she would like for me to make her some too. Of course, both times the answer was yes. In my mind, I’m thinking, “What! You’ve been home all day, and YOU’RE waiting for ME to cook dinner? What’s wrong with this picture?” So I finally said to her, “Hey, you’ve been home all day. Where’s my dinner?” Can you believe she laughed at me?!?!? That’s right. She laughed! Then, she reminded me that she was not a housewife. Man, I hope and pray that I live long enough to see her if and when she has kids. I hope they do to her everything that she does to me. I look forward to listening to her complain about her kids, only to laugh and say, “OMG! Really! Wow, I wonder who she got that from?” Future parents, take it from me, unless your kid really likes cooking or you tell you kids to make dinner (and they remember to do it), don’t expect dinner to be waiting for you when you come home from work. You would probably have a better chance hitting the Mega Million. In fact, you may as well start planning which numbers to play now. So, now you know, and you can … Consider Yourself Warned! If you have kids, have they ever surprised you with a home cooked dinner? And I mean a dinner that was not served on your birthday, Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day? Those don’t count. |
SassyGirlTye lives with her two wonderful teenagers in Brooklyn, New York. No matter what she says in her posts, she truly loves her children with all her heart.
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