Yea, Nay, What the Hey

(From the WP version of News From Hawkhill Acres)

Somewhere in the bible there’s a recommendation that you “let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.” I believe this was an admonition against swearing as in “I swear to high heaven I did NOT take the last cookie. It must have been the aliens that swooped down and sucked it up with their ray gun.” For some reason, god had a thing about people using oaths or embellishing their yeses and noes.

Well, I can relate to that. I decided a couple years ago that I was going to do everything within my power to say “yes” instead of “no” to my kids, even though my genetic makeup leans toward the other model of parenting. That would be the parenting style where you automatically say “no”, no matter what your progeny asks you, on the basis that whatever they ask you is a bad idea and will lead to tears, bruises, a mess or time behind bars.

When my youngest son died suddenly, I realized that the parenting style that I had been raised with wasn’t the way I wanted to raise my two remaining kids. If I had realized what a lousy parenting style it was, I would have dispensed with it when we acquired our first kid, but we can’t go back and do this parenting wheeze over, unfortunately.

So, from 2006 on, I’ve done a pretty good job of saying “yes” to almost everything my kids have asked of me. Luckily, I have pretty sensible kids. They seldom ask me if they can do things that are dangerous or expensive or extremely time-consuming. But yesterday, my son asked me something that I couldn’t say “yes” to and it’s bothered me ever since.

He’s 18 and his two best friends are 17. They have their licenses. He has his permit. They were all going to a movie and he asked me if he could ride with his friends. I didn’t even have to think. I said, “No, I’m sorry but you can’t.” He said he understood and gave me a hug and a kiss and went upstairs to bed, but I could tell that he was disappointed. Why wouldn’t he be?

Today, his friends pulled up to the movie theater in Josh’s little red car with the bumper sticker that reads, “Don’t piss me off. I’m running out of room to bury the bodies.” Never mind that Josh is a nice kid who gets straight A’s, babysits his little sister and has never given his parents a moment of worry. The bumper sticker says it all. “I have a license, a car and a healthy level of testosterone.” Showing up in the passenger seat of your Mom’s SUV with your little sister in the backseat just doesn’t cut it.

I’m really sorry. I wish I could see my way clear to letting Son ride with his friends. If they had been driving for a year longer, I’d give it my blessing. If Son had enough hours in to get his license and had passed his road test, I’d loan him my car and he could show up driving a vehicle and be on a par with his friends.

But, for now, he’s just going to have to put up with being driven around by his mom. It makes for some awkward moments and adds several trips a week to my schedule, but it beats lying awake nights wondering if I’ll be getting a call from the State Police. There’ll be plenty of time for him to give me gray hair when he gets his license in a couple of months. Of course, what with the price of gas, he’ll be lucky if he can afford to drive past the mailbox.

And speaking of driving, we’re driving to the coast of Maine for a two week vacation. This blog will be on hiatus until we get back. I’ll probably have a lot to blog about, seeing as how Son and Daughter and I will be sharing a motel room and Daughter and I will actually be sharing a queen-sized bed. Don’t miss the next exciting installment of “As the Clamworm Turns, A Maine Idyll” or something like it.