Parenting is hard

Note to the childless: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT envy your friends who have children. They are in a world of hell you cannot imagine and really don't want to experience.

*Sigh*

I love my kids, I really, really do. But sometimes you just don't know what to do.

It was report card day for Thing One and Thing Two on Monday. A day when every child who hasn't been up to scratch with their work trembles in fear at the reaction their parents will have to a slew of bad grades. A day when parents like The Husband and I dread with having to deal with children with grades so far apart a semi-truck could be driven through the gap, and do it in a manner that doesn't downplay one's achievement or unnecessarily torment the other.

Thing Two did it again. For the fourth quarter in a row, she has gotten straight A's. It would have been five quarters in a row, but the first quarter of last year she got a 91 percentage on something. And the girl's school gives the letter grades by a stricter standard than the usual 100-90 = A, 89-80 = B, etc. To me, it was still an A, you know? And this is pretty damn spectacular in my book. Hellfire, *I* never got straight As and I was a fairly good student. So yeah, we're pretty darn happy with the little blonde munchkin.

Thing One, unfortunately, has been having a really hard time of it this school year so far. She has chosen poorly when it comes to her homework and in studying certain things, trying to slip them past us because we didn't know that something was particularly assigned. She's dealing with a teacher that is much more exacting and picky (to the point of stupidity sometimes) than the two she's had before. She's starting to go through hormonal changes as she becomes a woman. And all of it shows in grades she got for the first quarter. The highest grade was an 87. A nice high B in my book. Then there were the Cs, the Ds and yes. A big, fat F.

Needless to say, the poor thing was in tears all afternoon over this. She felt like she was the biggest failure in the world. We knew that there had been problems with her work, and that she was sabotaging herself. We had hoped that changes had been made soon enough to get her a better grade than this in that particular subject. But apparently they weren't.

So on the one hand, we have the shining angel student that every parent dreams of, and on the other hand, we have the struggling, feeling like a failure student. Every word or action of praise that we give to one, feels like a nail to the heart of the other. Every word or action of discipline you speak to one makes the other feel subtly superior than her older sister. (Oh no! No sibling rivalry here at all. NOT!) But you can't NOT praise the one without making her efforts trivial, and you can't NOT discipline the other without making her bad actions and poor choices trivial.

It's not that Thing One isn't smart enough to get better grades. If that was the case, then we would deal with it by tutoring her or something like that. She's gotten straight As before as well. This was a case where she chose to specifically ignore work, ignore studying; keeping it all waiting until the last minute where of course there was no time to complete it or to get a good dose of studying in. The results were painfully obvious on both the work she brought home and in the report card.

But the one thing that this has taught me is that The Husband and I have drastically different expectations of Thing Two. I believe that a child her age and grade level (11 years, 6th grade)should be responsible enough to do the work expected of her without being hovered over. SHE is responsible to show me her completed assignments so that I can check them over for correctness. SHE is responsible for coming to me when she has a question about something. SHE is responsible to make sure they are done in a timely fashion. SHE is responsible for making time for studying instead of reading or watching TV or playing outside. This is not a hand-holding exercise for me. While I will happily give the daily questioning/warning of "Is your homework done?" the rest of it is up to her.

The Husband wants to take a firmer hand in the matter, that it shouldn't be left up to her entirely. Okay. Fine. Maybe she's not ready for that kind of responsibility. I can see that possibility. But what I don't agree with is that he thinks this is dropped entirely in my lap to deal with.

You, my dearest love, are entirely able to check her homework as well and to make sure that all assignments are completed. There are two parents in this household, last time I checked. Don't sell your intelligence short, and tell me that I'm the "smart" one here and you don't know what you are doing. I hoist the BS flag on this one. You want to lower the boom? Then you be the one to do it and I will back you up. We both work full-time jobs, and this is not about our usual division of labor. This is about our children. We're equals in this arena, with equal responsibility, babe.

It's going to be tough, this next quarter. Thing One has to bring up her grades. I'm not going to complain if the majority of them are Cs. Cs at this school are the public schools' Bs. But no more Ds, and certainly no more Fs. Priveledges will be curtailed. Life will not be all fun and games. But my little girl has got to know that responsibility for things in her life fall on her shoulders. It's the only way that we're going to be able to train her up to survive in the real world. We'll do her no favors by hand-holding her all the way through her senior year. At some point, it has to be up to her.

Good luck, sweetie. Mommy will be here to help you out. But I know you can stand on your own two feet. And you'll be good at it, I promise.