If You Love Them Let Them Fall

If You Love Them Let Them Fall

When our children are small the last thing in the world we want to do is let them fall. We surround them with pillows, we support their giant heads, put training wheels on their bikes and enough pads to make them look like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. We protect them from falling because that is what good parents do. However, as they grow up we are supposed to let them have a few skinned knees and elbows and they are no worse for the wear.

One thing that has become a parental epidemic is not letting our teenagers fall: flat on their faces. We remind them to do things that should be common sense after 15 years on the planet, we make excuses for them not meeting expectations and quite frankly we baby these almost adults to the point that they never learn to be adults. Part of being a grown up is owning your own shit, even if it stinks. While we teach our kids to wipe their own butts and tie their own shoes, why do we not teach them to own their own smelly shit? One theory I have is that we feel that somehow it is a poor reflection on us as parents: If Johhny-boy fucks up then that means Johnny-mama is a douchebag loser parent. How insane is that? So we never ever let Johnny-boy fuck up and learn from the experience? Big mistake.

Today I let Princess fall and I did it because I love her.

I didn’t surround her with pillows and I didn’t put the training wheels back on her bike. I didn’t even remind her to wear her helmet. I just let her fall, hard and today she ate sidewalk for breakfast.

Last year’s homeschooling endeavor was a battle of wills that essentially consisted of her doing her very best to make life as miserable as possible for me so that I would march her down to the local middle school and drop her ass off. I will not lie it was a tempting idea. I did persevere and work through it all and believe it or not she learned a lot and so did I. Her math skills tripled and my parenting skill worked double time. This year she is a high school student and as I explained in a previous post it is a whole different world and one that weighs more on her than on me. She is no longer a “Homeschooler” she is now on “Independent Study” and I am supposed to encourage her to take the reigns and become more independent and responsible for her work. It does not mean I am sitting around eating bon-bons, I still have to educate the child. However, she is now more responsible for completing the educational goals her teacher and I set for her without me begging, pleading, bribing or threatening to jump off the nearest bridge (at least in theory).

The first week she bitched that I needed to “leave her alone” because she is on “independent study now!” Last week I did just that. I did not say one word to her about her work. I provided her an assignment book with everything laid out for the week and I was available for help and I left it at that. Princess took the new privilege and did what any typical teenager would do: nothing. Last night I asked for her work to correct for her meeting with the teacher first thing Monday morning and she basically was missing 50% of it. She tried all the excuses which all fell short and in the end she knew she had to face her teacher, not me. She stayed up late and got up early to finish, ended up doing half ass work, most of which was not correct. She ended up being minus about 30% of her work and she had to face the music.

I did nothing.

I sat there and let her eat her Crow Benedict with her teacher. All questions were directed to her and she looked devastated. She was threatened with a referral (Sorry this is where I laugh..I mean really how the hell do you get a referral in homeschool?!) and she knows she screwed up bad. She has a D in Science this week and she lost 10% on an essay for lateness. That is the natural consequence for not handling your business. If you don’t do your shit you fail. Period. So she fell and I sat there and watched.

I spoke to her teacher about the situation and she was pleased to that Princess was given the space to screw up and own it. The truth is that when parenting a teenager part of teaching them does not only include Math and Literature it also includes Life. If I can pass on any parenting pearls of wisdom it is this: if you love them let them fall. Let them land face first in their own shit. You are not a bad parent because your kids screws up, you are a bad parent if you never let them. If your child never experiences failure, disappointment, shame or guilt then they grow up to be a self-entitled over-indulged narcissist. They also never learn. Part of walking is falling.

~RM1
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Category: Random Disasters | Tags: RM1

15 Responses to “If You Love Them Let Them Fall”

That One Mom 09/09/21 18:35

Amen, sister!! I agree 110% Thank you so much for verbalizing it!!!
Stephanie 09/09/21 20:07

Bravo!

I could not have expressed that better myself.
Lorie 09/09/23 13:09

Or you end up just like your Mom, sitting around all day wishing you had what others had instead of busting your ass to get there. Good for you! Teach your daughter to be better than you. Maybe she will succeed in life instead of trying (and failing) to be just like the person you profess to hate so much. What happened? Did you not get picked to sit at her table during BogHer? Did she not spell your name right when you waited in line for hours to get her book signed? What happened to you? This is what happens to the school yard bullies. They grow up to be catty women with nothing better to do but wish they could be something more. I hope you reach a place in your life when you can think for yourself and be successful on your own. Without the help of bitterness and hate. I wish you the best.
renegademoms 09/09/23 13:28

or she ends up being some total wack-job who goes around surfing the net for blogs-that-are-not-dooce to leave long-winded angry crazy comments defending a woman she doesn’t know who doesn’t give a shit about her and in the process makes herself and dooce look even worse than any supposed “haters” ever could….yet somehow I doubt it.
I think she will instead grow up to be someone who will think for herself, have her own opinions and not allow herself to be bullied by some crazy-blog chick and her flock of mommy-mafiosos.

Thanks for stopping by. Meditation is good. Namaste.
~RM1
Leonie 09/09/24 03:31

Thought this was a really interesting post. I think you’re doing a great job teaching your daughter about responsibilities and the whole “when you fuck up, you’re the one who has to deal with the ensuing outfall” thing. She probably hates it now, but she’ll think twice about not doing the work next time.

I do think it’s a shame you couldn’t just leave the article stand on its own merit, though. Would have loved it even more if you’d not felt the need to link to the dooce-douchery, because it almost directly contradicts the great lesson you talk about teaching your daughter.

Keep up the insightful posts, they’re a good read!
Leonie 09/09/24 03:35

PS. Lorie – I’m with you on the “I really don’t get all this hate directed at Dooce” train, but you’re pretty much committing the same crime towards these bloggers here…

It’s time that disagreement in the blogging world is sorted out through arguments, discussion or ignoring the hell out of someone again, instead of name-calling.

We’re grown women for chrissakes.
renegademoms 09/09/24 09:11

Miss Leonie~
First thanks for your comment. Second, I included that link to make a point: the point that Heather Armstrong with her narcissistic self-absorbed disposition is EXACTLY who I don’t want my daughter to become. I have met countless women just like her and the one thing they all have in common is that the people in their lives who were supposed to love them never checked them, never let them crash and fall and still don’t. As a result, they grew up to be people who think that everyone needs to revolve around them and they fail at being treated like everyone else. Heather was treated like everyone else when her washer broke until she turned into The Great & Powerful Dooce, which is what she does every single time she does not get her way or is not showered with praise. Dooce could not be a more perfect example of who I do NOT want Princess to be.
I would also like to address why you were not linked in your last comment: You used us to brag about how big and brave you are for leaving your “real name” on our page insinuating that we are big fat scary meanies and you stood up to us. We totally respect your opinion and support you saying whatever the fuck you want on your blog (or ours, we are fine with that)…if you want to say we are total douchebags there is no one who will cheer you on more than us. However, we also won’t lay down like dead dogs and let someone use us either. Yeah you only got one hit from our site…it was because we took your link off…duh. Now I left your link in your last two comments because you decided to cut that shit out. If you want to come on here and say we suck and we are mean and retarded then go for it. You won’t be saying anything that we have not said about ourselves on many occasions, and we are happy to leave your post link and all.
As for the bullying: well I know it’s hard for you and her minions to admit it but Heather Armstrong is the biggest bully on the blogging net not Renegade Moms; we may be assholes but we are not bullies. Dooce however, is famous for it. If you say ANYTHING that is less than blind worship she sends out the troops: her bully husband on Twitter and her Mommy Mafia. The mafia hit full force one poor woman who just merely observed that she didn’t really like Dooce’s bathroom remodel: the remodel Dooce showed the world herself. No one snuck into her bathroom and took a picture of her toilet with a giant Dooce-turd in it; she put the bathroom up herself to have her ego stroked. Just because someone calls her on her shit does not make them a bully. No one is “attacking” her, she is not being abused and Renegade Moms are not beating her up for her lunch money so cut the victim shit out. The whole “you should just ignore her” thing is retarded because Heather does not want to be ignored! DUH! The only problem is that she can dish the Dooce but she cant take it. Oh well. All is fair in love and war right?

I know your British and all but there is a saying here in the states: Don’t write a check your ass can’t cash. I think perhaps that is what Dooce has done and she is getting exactly what she set herself up for.

~RM1
Leonie 09/09/24 10:51

Hi Renegademom,
First off, thanks for your reply! I didn’t mean for my PS at the bottom of that blogpost to be construed as bragging. I was trying to make the point that well, I disagreed, respectfully (well… there was some sarcasm present so we’ll go with “reasonably respectfully” , and so I wasn’t embarrassed or scared to leave a trace. It’s what I hope we can all do – own up to our opinions because we’ve stated them in a way that encourages discussion, not flaming. I didn’t think you’d come and burn my favourite outfit or anything – the point was that in leaving a comment with my real contact details, I’m saying “hi, here’s what I think, and I’m not going to hide behind invisibility, because I stand by what I say and how I said it and you’re welcome to take it up with me over that.”
I’ll admit to a bit of pride at the comments I left, but only because it felt good that I pointed out what I perceived to be a kind of hypocrisy. That doesn’t mean I’m calling you or your “side” hypocrites, cause I’m just as willing to point out hypocrisy from fans of dooce (as above). I just wish we could all cut out the Mean Girls crap and start practicing what we preach. On some level the bitching makes me laugh, on another, it makes me cry that this is what we are using the amazing option that is blogging for. There are blogs out there (i.e. not this one) written by people who claim they can’t let the audience know which wellknown blogger they truly are for fear of being beheaded, but who will say ruthless things. One – have they seen Gossip Girl? And two, it doesn’t seem kosher to me – either you have an opinion and you stand by it openly, or you shut the hell up. That’s how it works in real life with real people with real feelings, and just cause I’m typing to a screen doesn’t mean you are not on the other side reading this, a real person with real feelings.
I know people are scared of the dooce-maffia. I’ve personally never really encountered them, but then I read Dooce’s posts and not the comments, because… well, they bore the pants off me. I don’t think it’s right for any group of people to harass and attack others, be they dooce-lovers or haters. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to hold Heather personally responsible for what her fans get up to, and I can sympathise with her lashing out in person occasionally given the extreme amount of crap that is directed at her. Is it classy? No. Can I see why she’d be tempted? Fuck yes. She may be popular, but she is still just the one person. That said, I’d admire it if she could write a “how about we all take a chill pill” appeal. But she’s still just a normal person caught in a suddenly abnormal life. She’s going to fuck up, as are we all.
We’re probably never going to see eye to eye as for as our impression of her character is concerned, and that’s OK. I don’t always agree with Heather Armstrong, but I don’t feel entitled to tell her awful things about herself and her children. If you don’t want to raise your children to become Heather Armstrong, more power to you. But does it really feel better if you’ve named her? Can you not just say “so my kid won’t grow up an irresponsible, spoilt brat” if that’s what you think of her and leave it at that? This them v. us thing is spiralling out of control (and don’t get me wrong, Heather’s response isn’t helping, but by now she probably thinks, fuck it, it’s not like anything I do is going to *stop* the hate mail, so why not have a laugh..).
I’m not going to call you names or assume things about your personalities, simply because I don’t think I have a right to. Buy I am all for owning up to disagreeing, not categorically, but with specific arguments. I hope you know that my blog post wasn’t meant as an attack on this site, but more of a “for fuck’s sake, can we just *grow up*, pretty please, and act like the intelligent women we are?” I don’t agree with the “haters”, I don’t agree with the “haters of the haters”. To quote a favourite saying of ours, pot, kettle, black. Everyone’s acting like a bitch, and I’m sure we’re not all bitches, so why don’t we all just calm down?
I have to say that I do think dooce is being attacked, mainly because there are websites primarly devoted to bagging her. That seems pretty attack-ish to me. Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough, but I haven’t found an army of lovers writing anti-hater websites (any second now my head is going to explode with the love/hate terminology). My point is – Heather Armstrong is a person. You don’t have to like her, but for the love of God, there is a person on the other side and if I copped half the shit she cops on a daily basis, I’d be dehydrated from crying. I don’t think anyone can take the shit that’s being dished out. You are being attacked as “a hater” (not personally, but as a member of a group), she’s being attacked as herself. Maybe she did write a check her ass can’t cash – but who declared anyone the debt collectors? Rationally, no amount of you pointing out what you think is wrong with her is going to make her change. Devote all that energy to writing great articles like the one above!
PS. I’m actually Dutch but I was taught British English and picked up a bit of Australian usage (spelling’s the same) through osmosis.
PPS. Sorry about the length of this. God I love a good discussion.
Thanks for reading,
Leonie
Lorie 09/09/28 21:18

Ok, this is where I lose my shit because I am NOT a follower. You have lumped me into a group “dooce fan” and taken away, me, the person. What I comment on this site is my opinion only. Heather does not need me, a person she could give a shit less about, defending her. I am not defending her as a person. I am troubled by the hate. And the truth is, it’s hard to comment on this site without a little nastiness in the comment because hate breeds hate. I don’t understand the need to single people out. I don’t understand the need to put one person’s name in almost every post written. And I commented that I am troubled by that. Not my exact words but that was the point I was trying to get across using the language that seems to be prevalent on this site. And it does not bother me that I ‘was called out’ by a “dooce supporter”. What is this supposed to mean to me? I don’t get it? I am not a follower, so for me this is puzzling? I agreed with her statement and even went back to check my comment for the so called name calling. I think I mentioned being catty, I still stand by that. I think this site is based on cattiness and it is hard to take any of the posts as serious. The subject matter could apply to me, I am a mother, a woman, a sister, a friend but I just don’t get the hate. And I still haven’t received an answer to my question in another comment. Why all the hate for one person? Did she do something to you that caused this? That is where I get irritated because without an answer it is just high school BS. I have never hidden who I am on the internet. You can look at my crappy blog. I neglect it most of the time so there is not much to see. I have never tried to draw attention to it and I don’t ask for comments because I don’t care what others think. You however do open comments so I am only assuming that you are welcoming me to comment here. If not, I guess I will be blocked or black listed or responded to. It’s your site after all, you can do with it what you wish. I just wish for explanation and answers to my questions.
renegademoms 09/09/29 00:12

I like Math. I am a Statistics nerd. Let me help you out here okay? Dooce makes up exactly 7.361963% of the content on Renegade Moms. Statistically speaking if we were to factor in a 3% margin of error she is barely even on the radar over here. Maybe later on I will crunch some data for you to digest. I can tell you what percent poop makes up on our site, or how many times we make fun of ourselves…I guarantee that those numbers will be much higher than “one person’s” are. So no Lorie, we dont put “one person’s name in almost every post written” unless almost every post=7.361963% which it does not. That would be a few not almost every. The rest of your comment is just nutty and makes little sense so I can’t help ya’ there. However, we always leave our comment section open and we publish all comments that are not spam about seeing Lindsay Lohan’s vagina unlike “one person” who does not. We support free speech even if (and often especially if) it’s to tell us what lazy bitches, meanies or total lame-ass retards we are. We would never block or black list you from commenting as you can see by your many published comments. Besides you are far too entertaining to not allow over here. We like trips to crazy town, they are fun. Thanks for coming by…again.
~RM1
Lorie 09/09/29 07:51

I will wear the crazy badge loud and proud. Makes life so much more fun when you get to fly through it on the crazy train. Woot!
Lorie 09/09/29 07:54

There, I will break my comments into shorter little bursts so you can comprehend. Maybe the length of the comment threw you off kilter. I know you will never answer those questions. You will continue to hind behind words like nutty and crazy so you can side step the tough questions. I won’t bother to ask them again. I will let you get back to hating for no reason. Carry on my dear. I will just be over here rocking in the corner.
Lorie 09/09/29 07:55

Hide? Hind? Oh well.