Parenting woes n concerns and happy bits.

I recall my mother telling me with great vigor that one day... ONE DAY... I'd have kids of my own and then, and only then, would I understand her p.o.v.

Well she wasn't whistlin' Dixie that's for sure. Holy shit.

I gotta be fair though... my two daughters who are now both teenagers, are two lovely wonderful creatures... they have manners, do absolutely excellent in school, and have a good sense of self, which is something I've only just recently come to know myself.

And it is true... once you've been an adult for awhile, you start to say the same things your parents/grandparents said :

"You call THAT music?"

"Turn off the light after you are done using it, it costs money!"

"Would you please pick up after yourself, I am not a maid y'know"

"So this is the new slang eh? Neat-o" (to which they roll their eyes)

Yes... we all do become some form of our parents. Embrace eet, cause denial will get you nowhere.

Unfortunately there are things going on with the modern teenager that we never had to face. With technology the way it is... sexting, verbally abusive texts, even bullying has become so much worse now that people can be anonymous while doing so... creating fb pages aimed at one person, or people targeting teens on instagram who have let it be known they're depressed (my youngest daughter informed me of this and had mentioned she had been targeted, but that although there were nasty people on there doing this, that she actually had a lot of positive encouragement from other members who had informed her she had been targeted and how to prevent them from continuing to do so by changing some of the settings).

Holy fuck, what is going on in this world?? *shakes head sadly*

Although I have gone through many lengths to educate my girls of the good and bad in this world, and not to let some ignorant lil shit to get into their head... I still worry profusely. I hate that I can't protect them anymore... all a good parent can do is arm them with knowledge and understanding of this world and then hope they were listening.

Also my worry just increases due to the fact that, as all teenagers have before them including myself, distance ourselves from our parental units... not just with them not communicating openly like they once did, but them locking themselves into their room, sometimes coming out to give an occasional grunt or 'meh' when asked how their day went, grabbing something to eat, then going back into the confines of their room. Now that I'm an adult, distancing myself to that extent is the last thing on the agenda...when I'm stressed out, sure I keep a tight lid on how I'm doing (I figure people are going through enough and don't need to worry about me)... but I suppose we all need a sanctuary... somewhere we can hide and feel comfortable... but goodness, I miss the time we would spend when they were only a few years younger :/ Playing cards with the 'rents isn't as enjoyable as a pastime as it once was.

It's scary not truly knowing what a teenager is thinking or dealing with... assumptions can backfire, and straight up demanding to know will get you fucking nowhere. I just feel badly, because I CAN vividly recall how stressful highschool was... the demands for excellence, trying to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, and then there's the outside world problems that can weigh down heavily on our lovely lil childrens heads/hearts... war, violence, bullying, indifference, financial difficulty...it can seem like everything's against you with nothing positive to look forward to. Us adults get jaded/indifferent after awhile... heartaches don't devastate us, problems don't frazzle us, and we don't just throw our hands up in the air and exclaim "I give up!"... but they have yet to experience all the things we have, everything is all fresh and new and overwhelming at times, gotta keep that in mind.

The girls and I had a pow wow not too long ago, and it was well needed. Sometimes as adults we're too self absorbed with our own stresses and concerns, that to us, their problems seem less and we tend to dismiss it or figure they're doing okay because they didn't bring anything to our attention. They don't have to suffer in silence.

Assume nothing folks. Remind them how much you care, how proud of them you are, praise them for taking initiative... these kids are going to be running the world when we're too old to give a fuck, they need to feel confident enough to do so, and that's our job (aside from being maids/nags/therapists/cleaners) so take it seriously...because once those moments of childhood are gone, you can't get them back.

Parenting is a hard ass job, but the rewards are totally worth it (if you are lucky enough to remain sane through it all, then you're a stronger person than I lol). And although, at times, I feel like a complete failure with this parenting business... when I see how lovely all 3 of my children have become... it gives me hope that I'm not fucking everything up, at least.

Soon my girls will be young adults, and we will have a different kind of relationship...it'll be a bit weird, since we all look at our kids like they're still babies, but I look forward to watching them evolve into adults.

And then I will endure the teenage years once more when my lil guy grows up... time to start writing some notes down now so I'll (hopefully) be better prepared when he's a teen!

I just met you, and this is crazy, but I will tell you my whole life story, so like me baby

Once upon a time in a magical land...

Okay scratch that magical land shit. Let's try this again.

Once upon a time back when I was younger and more naive than I currently am, I used to be an open book/heart on the sleeve sort of lass. I was always sharing about my thoughts/opinions/life...maybe because I thought I was hot shit, who knows.

But then facebook came to be. And although I resisted for the longest time, I eventually caved in and joined.

What a damn mistake that was, eesh.

It's like the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave /insert instrumental solo.

There is such a thing as giving too much information folks. Before the dawning of facebook, people would actually have something to converse about with a friend they hadn't spoken to in awhile, which was bloody well awesome. Now, with how everyone wants to showcase their whole world daily on facebook, there's not much to the imagination, and now that fb has the ability to be used through an app on most phones, EVERYONE AND THEIR PET MONKEY now feel the urge to inform the masses about every single little fucking thing they do, and take pictures to document it no less.

And don't even get me started on twitter and all the rest of those useless social media sites, what a fucking waste.

Does no one want to be mysterious anymore? Is that a passing fad like msn messenger?

But I can't escape from people wanting to inform me about every little thing... I have random interactions with random people throughout the day, and no matter where I go, there is always someone spilling their guts about issues I really have no business in being informed upon. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hearing about my family and close friends' lives/opinions, I'm referring to people that I don't/barely know).

I remember one time I was waiting for a bus at the hospital *can't even remember why I was at the hospital that day, I'm sure there was a good reason..* and this lady came hobbling up towards me and sat down beside me. Me being me, I struck up general chit chat as we waited for that godforsaken bus to arrive, and I guess me being generally friendly was enough of a cue for her to then go into detail about the injustices/unpleasant situations currently happening in her life. I just stared at her bug eyed as she went on about how her daughter broke her leg and how her kids have abandoned her... then, as if she could read my mind, she said "I don't know why I'm telling you this... there's just something about you that makes me feel comfortable to tell you".

People have been saying that to me all my life. "Something about you..." what the fuck does that even mean?  WHAT DOES IT MEAN PPL FFS.

I personally think that with how the world is currently, that although people don't mind sharing what's on their mind at any given moment, there's many people that could care less to hear it, and when they find someone that's friendly and doesn't mind listening, they become this sort of emotional parasite that leeches on to you. It's both kinda sweet and rather sad... they have to reach out to some stranger because their own family/friends could care less to inquire as to how they're doing. :/

It's overkill, and I put most blame on how everyone's zoned in to their phone/apps/social media sites... no one knows how to properly communicate and LISTEN... they just want to say what they want to say, yet they want everyone to notice...it's actually kinda funny in a sad way.

Now now, I can see the "OMG YOU'RE SO HYPOCRITICAL, YOU'RE WRITING IN A BLOG TO GET ATTENTION" look in your eyes (okay fine, can't actually SEE it, but I'm pretty damn sure you are thinking it)... actually no, cause barely a soul even knows I have this journal, this is mostly for me to vent and for the very slim few that read it, this journal is away to occupy a few moments of their time and perhaps give them a chuckle.... can't be bothered to go through the steps to make myself be known to all of the internet like I did waaaaaaaaay back when I had my domain...even then I couldn't contend with all the popular site owners who would do cam shows and wear barely fuck all in attempts to get more people to their site... I have always been a W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G kind of girl. Plus, I just don't have it in me to go and update this waste of space on the regular...and I'm pretty sure I'd run out of things to say eventually if I was trying to be clever with this journal 24/7.

I just find that I'm becoming more disenchanted with the online world... before it was a place to meet people and interact, there were so many new things to explore, it was a great way to spend your time. A lot of my buddies are people I met online, and have managed to keep as great friends as the years have passed... but these days,trying to find decent genuine people who aren't self absorbed is almost unheard of. People are rude as fuck, hiding under anonymity, harassing people for their own amusement, but in reality they wouldn't have the balls to say half the shit they do... and yet, you would think that, due to how easily our information is available online, whether from us posting it on fb/etc, that we would be more careful about disclosing our valuable information/whereabouts.

Now it's become one big circle jerk.

I miss the days where we could have something worth sharing to tell our friends/family members. I also miss how people used to listen.

If more people would be kinder to their fellow man/woman IN REAL LIFE... then perhaps there wouldn't be ladies like the one at the bus stop, who latch on to anyone who smiles in their direction.

I won't change the fact that I have an empathetic heart... I just wish more people would do the same instead of being all about themselves.