A good reminder

About a week ago my daughter and I had a knock-down-drag-out fight about doing the dishes. Not even about washing them, just about putting them away. We'd both had a rough week, and there was a huge pile of dishes that needed to be done. I had a tonne of work to do, and just wanted a hand putting the dishes away, either while I washed them or after. My daughter? Wasn't having anything to do with it. She spent 45 minutes fighting against doing it... and it would have only taken 20 minutes to do the job!

So while I was still angry about that I emailed my "parenting advisor" to book an appointment. If you know me, you've heard me talk about Jeanne Williams and that she must think that our problems are just the smallest littlest problems ever, lol. I pretty sure she wonders at my willingness to pay her hourly fee for little problems like "my daughter never does the dishes" compared to the BIG problems I'm sure most of her clients have. But she graciously allows me my parenting insecurities and reminds me that I'm not as bad a parent as all that.

Anyway, yesterday I went to my hastily booked appointment with her. We got through the usual "how have you been" stuff and then she pulled out her pad of paper and we started talking about my daughter.

We started by listing off all the things that she is SUPPOSED to be at least partially responsible for. In my house most of the "heavy lifting" chores are done by professionals who come every two weeks and vacumme and dust and clean the kitchen and bathroom, etc. so that leaves:
* Her homework - I don't even ask about this anymore. I haven't had any control over this in two years, and it isn't my problem anyway. She knows what she has to do and she gets it done. PASS
* Getting up and to school on time - Another thing I dont even ask about. I get up a 1/2 hour after her, and leave a 1/2 hour after her. I am up when she says goodbye, because I think it is a nice way to start the day, but I don't have to DO anything to make sure she is up or out of the house on time. PASS
* Laundry - we each do our own, and she does enough of it that she isn't wearing smelly clothing to school. PASS
* Picking up after ourselves - we each do our own, and I'm not perfect either. We both do get the job done before the cleaners come. PASS
* Feeding/watering the cats - the cats tell us when and we both do it. PASS
* Cooking - well we are both supposed to do this. Day on, day off. And we have lots of systems in place to help that happen. We use simple recipes. We get Simply Supper premade meals. We schedule around days when we know we have other committments (My bookclub, her pottery class, etc.) But after two months of this schedule I've - finally - noticed that there is a pattern to the days when she "isn't hungry" for supper... and (suprisingly!) it is the days when she is supposed to cook! NOT A PASS

Huh. Interesting list isn't it? There are a lot of PASSes on that list aren't there? She has learned to be responsible for so many, many things over the years that sometimes I forget that there was a time that she couldn't do these things.

As we talked I also mentioned that my daughter, my fifteen year old daughter, also says "I love you" to me regularly - even in front of her friends. She will also allow Public Displays of Affection (not always but she does allow them). She will also tell people (occationally even in my hearing) that she thinks I'm a good mom.

And I don't hate her music, her clothing or her make up.

AND I don't have any problems with her friends, in fact I LIKE most of them.

AND I was reminded again that she also doesn't drink (much, and only when I know about it), smoke (anymore, she decided it was stupid), do drugs (and thinks people who do are stupid, but fun to watch), or have sex (and is clear that she isn't ready, and has told boys that), and has never seen the inside of a police car or police station, except as part of a tour. ALL things I had done by her age. ALL things I had done WELL BEFORE I was her age (except the drugs, I was 32 ;) ).

So here I am in a PSYCHOLOGIST'S office complaining about her not doing the dishes. A chore that isn't even ON her chore list. Huh. And this is what I pay Jeanne for. She isn't afraid to tell me when I'm full of shit. Of course she was much nicer about it than that! Mostly she just reminded me that we DON'T HAVE TO agree on everything. That it is totally ok to fight about things every now and then (but not every day, like we used to). That arguing about dishes is a pretty minor thing. But at the end of the day? That's where we got. Me = Full of Shit. It was a good reminder!

The "not pass" on the meals? Well, we worked on that for a bit too, and I have a plan. A plan I don't think my daughter will be that thrilled with. But, you know what? It will be ok to fight about that too.