My daughter-in-law shared with me an old post on this blog from way back in 2005. That nudged me to go back looking through my archives and I came upon this one.
Apparently, I ticked someone off 18 years ago and they felt the need to share this with me.
From March 2005
From the last trolling comments:
You’re a deeply disturbed woman and the sad thing is you’re
homeschooling those poor children of yours. One hopes that once they grow up and
away from you, they will realize how much bigger the world is than
your own narrow view of it.And your children will grow up and away, Elena. Women like you who
Blog troll
try to control their children’s lives usually end up alone.
I currently have five living children ages 15, 12, 9, 7, and 5 1/2. Of course, I present them with a narrow view of the world. That’s my job, isn’t it? To protect them. But the 15-year-old has a broader view of the world than my 5-year-old. He can listen to the radio, watch t.v., and get on the internet. He prefers to listen to adult discussions when I have a party or dinner instead of playing with the kids. And when he gets with kids his age sometimes they actually talk about current events instead of just video games, sports, and girls.
Isn’t part of my job as a mom to make sure I know what he is listening to and watching? Is it wrong to have MTV blocked out, give him access to only the R-rated movies that his father and I approve of, and make sure that he can’t visit any porn sites? He knows those things are out there. He knows that we’re against them and why. But isn’t it my job as a parent to protect him from things that could potentially hurt him?
I asked him today what he thought of the Terri Schiavo case. He said, “It sucks.” I asked him if he thought our view had influenced him and he said something very interesting. He said:
“Look, mom, when I hear about how you think about something, I automatically take the opposite side and see how I can argue against it. Now I think you’re wrong about not letting me date, or get my driver’s license, but I can understand your reasoning. With Terri Schiavo, I couldn’t get behind the argument to kill her, so I agree with you.”
So he has developed some abilities to think and reason for himself in complex issues and yet he is still exercising his rebellious teen perspective. I wasn’t thrilled to hear he automatically takes the other side. However, it seems to me that maybe I did that as well at his age. Over time I realized that I didn’t automatically have to disagree with my mother. Deep down I did agree with her set of morals and values.
And then I think about my mother and my grandparents and how they raised me. I think they gave me their perspective of the world because that was the perspective they knew. Maybe it was a narrow view, but it was what they knew and understood. I used that as I traveled into adulthood as my touchstone, my compass, and my guiding point, and could make decisions based on that throughout my life.
But don’t all parents do that? Isn’t a liberal, pro-choice, perspective also a narrow slice of the worldview? How can someone give a total view of everything from every perspective? How can every perspective be fine and equal to all others? It seems to me that what you really give in that instance is confusion not guidance and I think we’re supposed to guide our children.
I do fully admit that Mr. Pete and I have a hard time letting Calvin test his wings, but we’re getting better at it. He is pretty free to ride his bike around the city provided I know where he will be and when he will get back. Call me paranoid, but I just don’t ever want to see an Amber alert with my kid’s name on it! We let him talk to his girlfriend for hours on the phone, although I gotta cut that short on work and school days. And maybe if we can find insurance at a reasonable rate he can drive too, but I reserve the right to worry about him.
When I was 23 I drove by myself for the first time from Flint Michigan to Milwaukee Wisconsin. I took a few hours longer because the traffic in Chicago was just plain scary. When I called my grandfather to let them know I was OK, he started to cry a little bit. He had worried the entire time. And that was OK. I knew he loved me. I knew that love bound us together. He cared about me even if I was a grown-up married lady because I was still his little granddaughter. Contrary to the opinion of my detractor, he died with all of us at his bedside. Perhaps I can hope for the same.
An update:
My children did in fact leave the house. My oldest is happily married and living 8 hours away with his lovely wife with a new addition coming soon. He is a paramedic crew leader. My second son is also happily married and traveling the world, getting ready to spend time learning Italian cuisine in Italy this summer. Son #3 lives with my granddaughter about a mile or so away from me and works at a local university. I’m homeschooling my granddaughter. Son #4 is also happily married and works in fraud control for a local company. When he was in college he traveled to Assisi in Italy for a few weeks. He graduated with honors.
Both of my daughters are in school. Izzy is a freshman at a local college and Rosie is finishing her senior year of high school.
We took a big group vacation last year in Charleston, SC, and got together again over Christmas. Right now we have a pretty active group chat that’s always buzzing. It’s great.
So since my youngest is about to become a legal adult in a few months, I think I can safely say that I enjoy a good relationship with my grown children. We love and respect each other. Don’t know how that happened but I think we just had a lot of love and a lot of grace from God.
With that same grace, and hopefully down the line a little further, I hope that I have a happy death and that my children and grandchildren think of me fondly.
I honestly do not remember what the issue was in 2005 that made someone leave me a comment like that. But all these years later I hope that whatever hurt they were feeling has worked itself out.
