How do you parent compared to the way you were raised?

The choice was also heavily influenced by lack of opportunity. I was ill during my 20s, got married at 30, got threatened with divorce on my honeymoon for no good reason, and I didn't want to have a kid in a relationship filled with chaos (wife had OCD and bipolar) because it reminded me too much of what I experienced.

I do have many regrets. As I get older, I think it would have been nice to have a little Vombatus running around.

 

The Internet and TV news killed America's perfectly reasonable sense of safety in an era when America is far safer than it was 25-30 years ago. What's more, it killed our sense of community. That your neighbor would say that -- as if they couldn't or wouldn't watch out for your kids -- is pretty sad.

 

I was the same way. I don't think my dad ever came to my school when I was a kid. My mom was there a handful of times a year, but I sure as hell didn't want them chaperoning anything or tagging along on field trips.

We're completely shamed into coming into my kids school. They sent something out saying they expect each parent to volunteer once a quarter. My wife did it and they had her making copies and running errands for the teacher. I've come in to do things like "Mystery Reader" and stuff like that, but I'll be damned if I'm going to run errands for a teacher. They encourage parents to come in for lunch and we've done that a couple times. It's just really annoying, especially when they constantly schedule things during times when normal people are working.

 

Most of our neighbors are pretty great, but we have two who are awful. One polices the neighborhood in case any of us put something out at the curb an hour before we're allowed to on bulk trash pickup days and crap like that. She calls if she thinks we're plowing or mowing the lawn too early in the morning. Most of us just avoid her like the plague. There's another one who isn't as bad as her, but she's a complete gossip and she frequently gossips about kids, which really pisses me off. Her daughter is in my oldest's class and she's the 8-year-old version of her mom.

 

When I was 6, I was riding a bus into Chinatown to visit my grandparents and crossing streets to get to school by myself. It was borne from necessity, my mom was a divorced, single parent and that was just the way it had to be. Later, when I was 9 and my sister was 11, we got up, made breakfast, locked the house and got home by ourselves.

I vowed that one the best gifts I could give my kids (now 15 & 13) was a stay at home mom; which is wonderfully convenient for them, but has stunted their independence.

One of the biggest wonders was how I was scared to death of my mom, afraid to defy her, yet my boys make the same mistakes over and over without worrying about my wife and I. It certainly wasn't "positive reinforcement" because this was the 60's and 70's; when it was really bad, my mom (5', 90 lbs) did beat me with a feather duster (can still hear it whoosing through the air) but it was no more than a handful of times.

 

Mom beat us (me and my two older sisters) with a big plastic spoon that she used for stirring pancake batter, etc. One day, in my teens, she whacked me and the handle broke off, and I began celebrating and laughing at THE END of THE SPOON. Even my mom laughed.

Ah the days of corporal punishment. Good times. Spare the spoon, spoil the child.

 

OK, gotcha. Sorry to hear that. And I can commiserate on the subject of (diagnosed) bipolar exes, so I know how difficult they can make life.

 

Thanks, bigpern,

Bipolar causes one hell of a roller coaster ride. The peaks were some of the best times of my life. But the valleys - I just didn't know anything to do or say to help. I did get her back in to getting professional help. But it turned out that I was just the first husband and she is working on husband number four now.

Info like that keeps me from looking in the rear view mirror. I did what I could to help. Maybe stuff will hopefully work out for her and #4.

VB

 

In the later '70s, my parents dropped me off at the big hardware store parking lot in St. Charles. I caught a bus and rode to downtown St. Louis, where that bus disgorged a shitload of us kids off near Busch Stadium. I walked 20 miles that day for March of Dimes, down some of the shittiest streets in St. Louis at the time, then caught the bus back to St. Charles.

I was 10.

 

My parents divorced when I was 8. For about two years my mom would come home from work and lock herself in her room. My dad started dating a 23-year-old nurse who treated my sister and I like shit and would make up shit about us to get my dad pissed at us.

I was 10 and my uncle called and wanted to talk to my mom. It was 6 p.m. and I told him that she was in her room with the door locked. He said, "Does she do that a lot?" and I told him that she did. He drove to our house that night (90 minute drive) and stayed up all night talking to her. She was better almost instantly. I think he had to explain to her that she was better off without my dad and that she owed it to her kids not to hide from the world.

I will always be grateful to him for doing that, among other things. Just a tremendous guy who I am very lucky to have in my life.

Even when my mom got out of her "funk" I could basically do whatever I wanted. My sister had a little more structure. She had three hours of dance class every day after school, so she would go home with one of her friends and then the friends' mom would take both of them to class and my mom would pick them up at 6.

I was basically on my own to get to football/baseball/basketball practice. I remember my uncle telling my mom how lucky she was that I didn't get into a lot more trouble than I did.

 

I assume this your mom's brother and not your dad's brother?

 

Good assumption. Although I think my dad's siblings would have told my mom the same thing.