Nothing worse than others telling you how to raise your kids.. so I will ....

You know more and more I am disliking people who tell me what my kids can watch, eat, play, and wear. Who the hell do they think they are... really!!.......... They act like a mafia crew if you should buy your child an x- rated video game or take them to a movie that might have sex and violence. I mean don`t think for a minute kids are stupid. If they don`t view or play it at home they will view or play it at someone else’s home. Like Mine.
Let`s talk about the sex for a second. I am not talking porn here, that`s a whole other conversation for later. I am talking about the scene where the guy and girl kiss, start taking off some cloths and fall into bed with the assumption of having sex till they cut to the morning after shot. You know fake sex. Come one people it is fake sex it takes less time in real life then what the movies portray. Just do not get me wrong, I am not saying or even agreeing that children should be watching porn. That is just wrong on so many levels that I wouldn`t even know where to begin. Again kids are not stupid. They know that the stork does not bring babies, and if they don`t well as a parent you really need to get over your shyness and talk to them because otherwise when they come to you and say I am pregnant you can`t get mad cause it wasn`t their decision it was the STORKS! Damn Stork`s got me 3x`s before I realized who my husband really was.

Then there is the violence on the TV news. I mean the violence there is at least real. You don`t see reporters taking fake blood, splattering it all over someone`s body, while they set up mass destruction in the back ground so a report can tell us about a war in another country. “No, those are real dead people that you are watching on TV, my son”. “No, they will not get another 10 lives to try that again like your “Gears of War 2” character does if you save the game and die”. The evening news is real violence. It shows humanity at its finest. Yet growing up I hated the news and I remember my parents telling me that “watching the news keeps me informed of the world around me”.., Riiiiiight, informed, like I wanted to be informed that real people actually kill other people over the stupidest things. No fake blood, no getting shot 10 times and taking a potion to mend your health, no running from monsters and escaping. No driving a car into a wall and walking away from it. Oh you know what I mean. Humans die in real life... Video game characters come back for revenge.

However, whether you believe in allowing your kids to watch rating 18+, PG 14, Mature, PG 13 or G shows, movies, or video games, or not, do you really think that others have the right to tell you whether you can or cannot. You’re the parent, if you actually taught your kid(s) right from wrong then they should know the difference between what violence they see on the TV news vs. the Violence they watch in movies or play on video games.

My son was 4 when he first started to play a on line game called “Counter Strike” for those who do know of this game it is terrorists vs. counter terrorists, a game where you stop a bomb going off and save the day. Play either terrorists or counter terrorists and you’re always a hero either setting the bomb or defusing it. Anyways, my 4 year old played it and he is now 10 and still plays this game. His first words were “go go go” sitting in the back of our minivan playing finger gun with all the passing cars (tinted windows are a mother`s best friend in cases like this). Is he violent? Hell ya! he is violent but only in game.
When he is not gaming he is the sweetest kid around. He would tell me every day I was beautiful even if my eyes were swollen, hair so matted I would have been better off shaving it all off then actually combing it out, dried saliva on my cheek and wearing oversized flannel nighties. He sings to himself all the time (even now he still does it), sweetest voice. He helps his friends at school with work if they don`t understand, he walks home a little girl every day, right to her day care door because he worries she might get picked on by older kids. He does this even though he is the smallest 10 year old in his class, he does this even though he knows there isn`t much he could do if someone wanted to hurt his little friend. He even does it knowing if he had to defend himself he would end up getting his ass kicked. Yet he does it all the same. He loves all animals great and small and will take a spider outside and set it free if he finds one in the house, instead of squashing it.

Why does he do this? He does it because we raised him to have respect for all life and all people. All our kids are raised the same way and will stand up for others even in the event it might get them an ass kicking by a bully. He also does this because we talk to him, I don`t mean talking to him as in asking him to clean his room, I mean really talk to him, Find out how his day went, if he talks to us about what someone else does in school and that they got in trouble for we ask him things like “how did it make you feel” or “do you think the person was in the right for doing what they that got them in trouble.” We question, We support , but most of all we listen (even if it was just with one ear). It not like he only tells us what bad things others do he also will be honest and tell us about what bad things he does to and I have had the principal say he is honest and never tries to blame anyone else for what his part in the situation was. Not like we have gotten those calls a lot either, 2x since Kindergarten to present.
I can be thankful for small favours that is isn`t a rowdy kid like my oldest one was ... OMG, I was at the school more often then I was home. The school should have given me my own office with my own desk and name tag for all the times I had was called in over my oldest son`s fighting in school, then he hit grade 6 and all the fighting stopped. Just stopped, not sure where it went but it left.

My kids are not perfect ( but neither am I and but they don't know that) let me make that 100% clear. They were devil spawn in disguises. They have been feeding on my soul for years but I always talked to them (yelled begged, cried and bribed too) till they fully understood I meant business. They are not perfect to this day but they are still learning and I am still teaching. At least until I have nervous breakdown and they have to change my diaper because I am in a state of constant denial, in which they cannot bring me out of or until they have kids of their own and begin to teach their own kids what is right ( this last scenario is what I am rooting for personally, as the thought of wetting myself and having them look after me scares me more than being a grandmother), I will continue to teach them what is right and they will continue to learn. It may kill us all in the end.

Letting our kids watch violence and such on TV doesn`t make them violent, what makes them violent is not teaching our kids the difference between real and fake. You can`t be the parent if your kid is raised by someone else who morale’s are different than yours, you can`t be an effective parent if you let the TV raise them. You especially can not be a parent if you`re your kids friend. Want to be a friend to a kid then be a friend to their friends. Joke laugh, give advice but sound as if it`s their idea when they make the right choice, but know that their actions don`t reflect upon you but your kids actions do. I am not saying tell your kids friends to do things that are wrong but you don`t have to drill it into their heads like you do with your own kids. They have parents and that is their job not yours. It like grandparents giving a child candy before supper when the parent said they couldn`t have any earlier. The grandparent are completely unaffected that the child will no longer eat his or her dinner, but they got to be the best person alive at the moment the candy was handed over.

Sit down and watch a violent or scary movie (if your kid can handle it, not all kids can and you’re the best judge of your own kid) explain to them at every possible scene that it is not real and ask questions like "ya, think if ya got shot 10 times you could get up and kick butt” or "Do you really think all that blood is real" comment like ... "ya right! That was sooooo fake, did ya see their eyes move" or "gawd, did ya see how Michael Myers was run over by a car and yet he still got up, is that fake or what?"

Listen to your kids more, don`t always judge. Beware of their friends but don`t ban them from the friends you don`t like, know who and where they go. Don`t let them use the term “peer pressure”, make them accountable for their actions cause let`s face it, we won`t actually do something we don`t really want to do in the first place deep down inside. “Peer pressure” is a cop out and my kids know never to tell me that such and such told them to do it, because I, myself have tested the whole peer pressure excuse on them all the time to eat their damn veggies and they still refuse. So in my house Peer pressure is a fancy word for doing something they know was wrong, only they chose the wrong version and now they are grounded without parole. Don`t ever let them off easy and say things like; “well next time maybe you will know better” cause if they really liked it they won`t care and just do it again. Remind them in a nice way to use the brain that your seed gave them while they were forming inside you. Make sure they understand exactly what will happen to them the next time they do something like that again. An Eye for an Eye. Gawd if only that statement was true... an eye for an eye ... So they kill your fish, you kill their gerbil... your new shirt cut into pieces cause the fabric was soft and they wanted to use it to build a bed for the cat means their shirts will now be cut into pieces for you to use as cleaning rags around the house... yep the eye for an eye theory really doesn`t work in the real world. It just ends up making us look like animal killers or costs us money to replace clothing. But you can take away the cell phone, video games and MSN chat. Leave them with what they came into the world with; NOTHING. At least for a short time anyways.

Nothing worse than a kid who cannot talk to their parents about things without being told “don’t be stupid.” Now I am also not saying that kids don`t have stupid ideas, we all know that strapping a cape on and standing on the roof, ready to see how high you can fly is not really showing the world your intelligence level. At least that is what the kids told me when I tried it last summer. And yes, you can hear me say “ OMG! That is the stupidest thing you have ever said since the last stupid thing you said” but they also know I am not calling them stupid; I am calling the idea stupid. If your open with your kids they will learn from you, talk to you, and even be able to tell you things like... “I swear if that bully does not stop picking on me I am going to go postal”. You may be shocked but at least you can do something before it becomes another school shooting in the papers. Just know while you’re sitting there with a bottle of vodka in your hand, after your kids says something like that to you, that they trusted you enough to bring their problems to you before they got to their breaking point. Even adults have a breaking point, why shouldn`t our kids.

All I am saying is I really hate it seeing everything rated.., As a parent, if the front of a CD shows me something that would make me look under my bed for the next week, I have the right to decide if my kid should watch it or not and no one else should have influence over that. If I go to buy a video game for my kids to play, in which has them killing other players in a GAME. It is my right as a parent to decide if this game is really a game I want them to play. It is not the right of some woman or man in my country or another country, who has never had kids or has kids but who chooses to have them raised by a nanny, that has the right to tell me I should not be buying a game that is rated above my child`s current age at the time of the purchase. If it was then I want child support from those people starting from child birth to present day.

It works both ways too. So don`t ever ask me or anyone else if I or they recommend your kid watching or playing something because the only answer you`ll get out of me on that is your the parent do what you feel and know is right for your child. Didn`t your parent ever teach you right from wrong? I thought so.



"...I won't let it happen. I won't... I won't let this world exist without me!"