Rejuveniles?

Suddenly there is a name for parents like Tom and I, and according to "Talk of the Nation." We are not held in very high esteem by some people, it seems. They call us rejuveniles with a tone of derision. Apparently, according to the critics of people like me, I need to grow up. I should stop playing soccer with my son, my daughters and I need to stop sharing clothes, earrings, and shoes, we need to stop listening to the same music, attending movies together, reading the same books, going to bars together to drink and shoot pool. In essence, some callers chastised me, and others like me for treating our children as equals and friends. And I should have never gotten that belly ring or had my nose pierced. (I did those things overseas as a Navy brat, long before I even met their daddy, let alone had any kids, but try convincing Physsis Schlaffley of that. It sure made me unique in Iowa, though!)

Well, a huge Bronx Cheer to the priggish types who seem to just be mad at us for having fun with our progeny. One caller hit the nail on the head when she said that "…Some people, like your earlier caller, just seem like they are mad at us for the choices we have made about how to live our lives and raise our kids."

I have experienced this phenomenon personally, but I don’t care what other people think about my parenting; I do care, however, what my children think of the job I have done. The scorn of thousands can’t put a dent in the ego-stroke my youngest gave me a few months ago…"I can’t wait to settle into a life and start having kids, because you guys just made it so much fun to be a kid, and it was so obvious that you guys were having fun too." (It’s true. We were.)

We saw no reason a child who spent hours working on a cushion-fort needed to dismantle their handiwork just because a relative was flying in. My philosophy was, if you want to come to my house for "vacation" (we got stationed in places people wanted to visit. So they eschewed the hotel bill to stay at our house) we ain’t changing for you – what you see is what you get, and by the way, KIDS LIVE HERE!!! For a while, I am certain my in-laws thought "what did we expect? He married the daughter of a non-com."

I used to call my husband my "Six O’clock Savior." Not because the kids were making me crazy, but because I was exhausted from a day of play and still had to make dinner when he walked in the door around sixish. He would take over for me and finish wearing their healthy, energetic little asses out. He would come through the door and boom out "Fall in you little non-coms. Tell me what you did today." And rank be damned, they never would fall in properly. In seconds, he would be flat on his back on the floor, under three squirming, giggling, squealing kids.

Sometimes our son would smirk "You aren’t the CO here, Mommy is!" And then it would be on. There is a reason the TV was elevated and the Stereo hung from the ceiling for 12 years.
Later on, as they got older they would go "running" with dad. (He did his real 5 mile run before breakfast.) They would suit up, and run up and down the abandoned runway behind our housing unit.

When there was no school, the rule was that kids had to eat at sundown, and they had to come in for the night when Jupiter shone. Those were tangible things a kid just developing a concept of time could grasp. Numbers on a clock mean nothing to a four year old, not really. But they recognize sundown, and point Jupiter out one time, and you will have three kids on the lookout for it and not arguing about coming inside for the night when it’s spotted. On school nights, we just picked an earlier planet.

I could go off on this topic for pages, but I won’t. Just let me point out that two of the three live a block away, and our son lives 16 blocks away, and…we all attend the same college. Mom is a grad student, Dad is getting another bachelors, our son is a grad student, our daughter is a medical student, and our other daughter is collecting art history credits and tattoos. She just moved back home and transfered in after breaking off her engagement.

To those who say I ruined my kids and all that crap, I call bullshit. Three productive citizens, free thinkers, responsible, civic-minded…Of course, those who say things like that haven't met my kids.

From the time my son could manage a shopping cart, he offered to help older ladies to their cars, my oldest daughter once refused to participate in free-dress day at her Catholic school because "Anna's daddy (Mark Gietzen, former KS Republican chair and a personal sworn enemy of mine) makes here wear her uniform and the other kids make fun of her. They like me, so maybe if I wear mine too, they won't tease her today." The youngest one has volunteered at child care centers in homeless shelters since she was 12, and this summer she is also volunteering at a "safehouse."

Rejuvenile? I'll take that title; and I’ll take my results, thanks. And to paraphrase Jack Nicholson "You can hold your criticism. You can hold it between your knees."