If It Walks Like a Duck and Acts Like a Duck……..
Well it’s Saturday morning after a very long spring break. I get up, make the coffee and prepare for the three parasites to make their appearances sometime after about two pm. The teenagers can accomplish confusing their days and nights in just a standard weekend so a full week is a pattern that can only bet fixed with the 6:30 wake up on Monday morning. There will be yelling, crying, throwing things, and begging to which I will smile and say “I told ya so”. I have warned and threatened all week and have been forced to suffer a million teenage sighs and eye rolls so the “I told ya so” I get to enjoy on Monday morning will be followed by an evil grin and laugh that will rival any Disney villain ever created. As they beg and plead I will be doing my best Cruella de Vil, Ursula, and Evil Queen impersonations. I haven’t decided yet if I I will mix them all together for the ultimate super villain or give each one of the parasites their own experience. I’m a evil mom so I’m leaning toward the ultimate super villain.
Now them sleeping late has had some advantages for me. We live in a neighborhood where each of my parasites has their own groups of people their ages to hang out. This causes them, over 90% of the time, to completely ignore the fact they have siblings and do their own thing. They basically act as if they are each only children. The only times they acknowledge each other is when they are forced to interact. This does cause an interesting phenomena which is they very rarely fight.
This spring break we decided to stay home. The problem with this is most of the neighbors decided to travel. This caused a week of my parasites to interact with each other. The first few days were peaceful because it seemed to be a new playmate for each, but by Wednesday the standard “GET OUT” “I HATE YOU” and “YOU’RE AND IDIOT” and then dreaded “MOM- HE HIT ME” started to be yelled throughout the house. At first I started to say “Do not talk to your sibling that way” and “Do not hit your sister” but after about 24 hours of the insanity I started to say “If any of you get really hurt and you started it- it’s your own fault and don’t come crying to me”
When I grew up there were consequences to actions. If you hit your sister and she hit you back and it hurt I was told “Well you shouldn’t of hit her first” I never got a spanking (ass beating for those of you not from the south) without the dreaded “I have decided you will receive three licks, but first please tell me why you are getting them” If I said anything other than the offense I had committed one lick was added. I learned after the first two times of saying “I don’t know” and getting licks added to just take personal responsibility and admit the offense I had committed. I knew what I had done, but taking personal responsibility was always much tougher than the licks that were coming. I knew I had done the deed and it was time to pay the piper, but admitting it was always the more cruel and unusual part of the punishment. I wanted to blame someone else, make excuses, and say it wasn’t my fault but that just wasn’t part of dad’s deal. Admit your misdeeds and accept your punishment was the only deal that was gonna get made in my house.
This started me to think about personal responsibility, or lack thereof, in our society today.
I watched a news program last night where a 14 almost 15 year girl had stolen liquor from her mother, gotten a little tipsy, texted a 16 or 17 year old boy to come get her to have sex, proceeded to sneak out of her mothers house, had sex with the boy, and then continued to have more to drink. This child was sitting on national television admitting to this behavior. She then proceeded to blame the boy, the school for being mean to her, and the police for not prosecuting the boy for rape. I’m still confused about what rape when she initiated, but ok? Luckily even two separate panels of DA”s and people said there was no rape so what even amazed me more was her mother sitting right there with her blaming everyone else for her daughters behavior. Society is trying to teach her personal responsibility, but mom absolutely not. She was mad that people had called her a slut. All I could think was “well baby girl if it walks like a duck and it acts like a duck……” There was a little more to it and the boy did make a bad judgement call after everything else happened, but how exactly is none of that her fault?? How exactly does she deserve rally’s saying “Justice for Daisy”? Justice for what? She made terrible judgement calls – how is anyone else to blame?
Now before everyone freaks out and starts throwing large boulders at my head again – let me just say – I have a daughter and the last time I checked I am a woman. I also consider myself lucky that I have the ability to raise children of each sex which allows me to see things from both sides of the issue and I believe we have gone way too far in telling our girls they do not have to take responsibility for their own bad behavior or decisions anymore. I am ALL for protecting women and DO NOT want to go back to the days of the thoughts of “she was asking for it”, but I also do not want my daughter to think that any time in life she ever regrets a decision she consciously made it obviously wasn’t her fault and she can just blame the boy.
As a woman and a mother all of this confusing of the term rape by our society is extremely disturbing. The definition of rape is simple. Rape is an act of aggression. Rape requires a conscious decision on the males part to do something against the woman’s will. Against her will can be an act of violence or even an act where she cannot make a conscious decision. Rape is not- I regret the decision I had to have sex with them this morning because someone will be mad or oops I had a lapse in judgement and he should of somehow known that through osmosis or even I didn’t want anyone to know and they will call me names so I’ll just say he made me. So that being said – if it was her conscious will to have sex then it wasn’t rape. The only exception is children and adults and that’s a completely different issue.
What bothers me most about this girl and her mother is that by trying to play this game and saying a false allegation there are other girls who deserve justice that will never get it because they are too scared to come forward. They will see this program and see she was called names and the boy was not prosecuted and think they will not get justice either. They won’t understand that he was not prosecuted because it wasn’t rape or that she was called names that she had earned all by herself fair and square. This girl didn’t get justice because there was no justice to give. I want the girls who deserve justice to come forward and I am afraid this mother and daughter have hurt that process not helped.
The reason this is so disturbing to me is because my goal is to raise my parasites to be good humans. How can I teach my daughter how to control her personal sexual responsibility and my boys to respect women sexually when the rules have gotten so completely out of whack? How do I say “sorry kid- you did the crime so you’ll do the time” when there are mothers on national television constantly blaming others for their children’s bad decisions or actions. How do I teach my boys how and when their behavior is inappropriate or appropriate when they could change on a whim the next morning? How do I explain to my daughter that her reputation is hers to control and right, wrong, or indifferent society will give you the one you earn when there are people on TV saying it’s not her fault?
I guess all I can do in this crazy no fault society we live in today is to just keep raising mine to try to take personal responsibility for their actions and to understand that consequences are part of life whether anyone else does or not. You can bet I will not be on TV blaming it on anyone else. Every decision they make and every action they have will always have a consequence. Some will be good and some will be bad, but a consequence just the same. I can only pray that the consequence of teaching them to take personal responsibility is their ultimate knowledge of right and wrong and if no one else does at least they will have each other even if it’s through the brotherly and sisterly punches of love.
REDS WORLD TODAY 